Apple is planning to produce a passenger car with some level of autonomy by 2024 that could include its own battery and lidar technology, according to a Reuters report.
The company has not announced anything about its car plans. The report is based on comments from three anonymous sources with knowledge of Apple’s plans.
Apple first entered the automotive space in 2014 with Project Titan but then reassessed in 2019 when Apple veteran Doug Field laid off nearly 200 people devoted to the work.
Some analysts said the car project seems ambitious, even for Apple, given the thousands of parts and electronics required for a car, much less the needed research into new components and artificial intelligence. Apple hasn’t made a car and it isn’t clear who Apple would use to manufacture the vehicles at a scale of perhaps 100,000 vehicles a year.
The report said that Apple could rely on partners for lidar sensors or use lidars derived from its own technology that is uses in the iPhone 12 Pro and iPad Pro.
The car’s battery would rely on an Apple monocell design, which would allow more reactive material to be inserted for a longer range. It might rely on lithium iron phosphate (LFP), which is considered safer than chemicals used in other lithium-ion batteries, according to one source in the story.
Building an electric vehicle would be easier for Apple to build than a car with an internal combustion engine, with fewer parts to source and qualify, said long-time analyst Kevin Anderson of Write-Tek. "Still, building a car is a huge logistical challenge, so having a manufacturing partner makes the most sense."
Anderson added that producing a fully autonomous car by 2024 isn't feasible.
Autonomous vehicles are in development by nearly every major car manufacturer and there are lower levels of autonomy which some vehicle have already reached. Tesla and other manufacturers offer features such as lane assist, a technology that tracks lane markings to keep a car centered in a lane, which can be done automatically if the driver enables it. Rear collision mitigation is also gaining popularity, helping to automatically track the distance to a vehicle in front. Tesla even offers AI with its wipers that sense when to turn on if it rains.
Higher levels of autonomy, such as SAE Level 5, are years away from production. Under the highest levels of autonomy, drivers would essentially become passengers and some futuristic designs of cars don’t even include a steering wheel or an accelerator.
Because of the complexity of creating a fully autonomous car that rides on an open road, companies like Mobileye are starting out by backing robo-taxi concepts in which a vehicle usually follows a prescribed route. Many designers are hoping that vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications help give autonomous vehicles greater awareness of their surroundings, with sensors on roadways supplying data on weather, pedestrians or other conditions.
Anderson said that using 5G with V2X capability would be within Apple's technology capability, as well as building a cheaper solid state auto lidar technology. "Apple may be in a better position to accelerate the development of lidar due to its existing vendor relationships," he added.
The Reuters report said that Apple might encounter delays in its 2024 target, given potential supply chain delays with COVID-19. It isn’t clear what self-driving features an Apple car would include or what AI technologies Apple has developed for processing data from multiple sensors and then acting automatically on those inputs. Apple does have plenty of AI software working in its smartphones and other devices. In one example, photos and videos stored in the Apple cloud can be automatically sorted into short films based on a certain theme and paired with music, then presented to the iPhone user.
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