Apple’s non-existent self-driving car is already being adopted by consumers as a new survey shows that 26 percent of drivers would ‘definitely consider’ buying a vehicle from the iPhone maker.
Consulting firm Strategic Vision surveyed 200,000 new car owners and for the first time added Apple to more than 45 brands that consumers could share their thoughts on.
Only Toyota and Honda ranked higher on the brand consideration question at 38 percent and 32 percent, with Tesla taking 20 percent. Furthermore, when asked about the quality impact, 24 percent of car owners gave Apple high marks.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has reported that Apple would like to have a fully autonomous electric car in 2025 but the road to this type of technology is littered with failed or abandoned attempts.
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Consulting firm Strategic Vision surveyed 200,000 new car owners and for the first time added Apple to more than 45 brands that consumers could share their thoughts on. Above: A concept of Apple’s self-driving car
Only Toyota and Honda ranked higher on the brand idea question (above) at 38 percent and 32 percent, with Tesla taking 20 percent. When asked about the quality impact, 24 percent of car owners gave Apple high marks
Recently, the tech giant has not said much about this car project. CEO Tim Cook told the New York Times last year: ‘We’ll see what Apple does. We check a lot of things internally. Many of them never see the light of day.
Nevertheless, the company recently revealed that it has hired Gregory Baratoff, who worked at Hyundai, most recently as VP of its Autonomous Vehicle Laboratory, and head of camera sensor development at Continental Corporation in Germany. done inspection.
Any Apple Car will benefit from consumers’ growing desire for more technical capabilities in their vehicles and the company can broadcast its content offerings to any screen inside the car, as Bloomberg notes.
The Cupertino, California-based company’s effort to develop a car dubbed Project Titan and dating to 2014 that is autonomous, sleek and full of the bells and whistles one would expect from an Apple product, hit roadblocks over the years. Is.
Apple CEO Tim Cook (left) has been silent about the company’s effort to build a self-driving bar, but recently hired Gregory Baratoff (right), VP of Hyundai’s Autonomous Car Lab Were, pointing to the ongoing Project Titan efforts.
Apple recently hired Gregory Baratoff, who worked at Hyundai, most recently to serve as VP of its Autonomous Vehicle Laboratory. Above: A concept from Hyundai’s Autonomous Vehicle Lab
The Apple Cars team produced a number of great demo videos for Cook and other high-level leaders to demonstrate the progress of the project. Above: An image of the new Hyundai MOBIS ‘smart cabin controller’ that monitors driver posture, heart rate and brainwaves
According to a report in The Information, which is based on conversations with 20 of the company’s employees, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, is “particularly skeptical” about the project and has spoken to other senior Apple executives. have expressed their concerns.
Cook – who ‘rarely visits’ the project’s offices in Santa Clara, Calif. – is also not “committed to a mass launch of the vehicle,” said the report. The other leaders of the firm have disappointed.
Project Titan has been led at various times by Ian Goodfellow, Bob Mansfield, Doug Field and Kevin Lynch.
Earlier this year, one of Apple’s test vehicles nearly hit a jogger while driving at about 15 mph.
The Information reports that the car’s software first identified the jogger as a ‘stationary person’ and then as a ‘stationary object’ before finally reclassifying it as a ‘moving pedestrian’. However, even with that change, the car ‘just slightly adjusted its path.’
Jony Ive, the former chief design officer of Apple, who was instrumental in designing most of the company’s popular products, is reportedly consulting with the tech giant and asked the Apple Car team to ‘learn into the weirdness’ of its design Said to do no. Try to hide the sensor.’
As reported by The Information, the current form of the car has ‘four seats that fold inwards so that passengers can talk to each other and a curved roof similar to the roof of a Volkswagen Beetle.
Apple Car designers are apparently experimenting with a trunk compartment that automatically folds up and down to give owners ‘easy access to storage space’.
The tech news site states that they have also considered a design that would allow passengers to ‘lie flat and sleep in the vehicle’.
The Apple Cars team produced several great demo videos for Cook and other high-level leaders — including a 40-mile trek through Montana filmed by drone — to demonstrate the progress of the project.
However, the example also showed how engineers are ‘wasting valuable time choreographing performances’ along known routes, proving that the technology works in specific locations but virtually nowhere else.
Uber self-driving vehicle engineer Arun Venkatadri explained to The Information, ‘If you spend enough money, you can get almost any surefire route to work. ‘But what hasn’t been shown is whether you can build your self-driving software in a scalable way and whether you can operate in a much wider area.’
The Cupertino, California-based company is reportedly still targeting 2025 for a possible launch of its self-driving vehicle.
According to a report by The Information, which is based on conversations with 20 of the company’s employees, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, is ‘particularly skeptical’ of the project and expressed his concerns to other senior Apple executives. is expressed.
Former Apple chief design officer Jony Ive, who played a key role in designing most of the company’s popular products, is consulting with the tech giant and has called on the Apple Car team to ‘bend into the weirdness’ of its design and ‘try not to. ‘ asked for. To hide the sensor.’ Above: A patent Apple has filed in relation to the car project
