Apple aims to produce first self-driving car by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery technology, sources say

Apple aims to build a personal self-driving vehicle for the mass market, using a new battery design that could reduce cost and increase vehicle range

Making a vehicle represents a supply chain challenge even for the iPhone maker – it took Tesla 17 years before it finally turned a sustained profit making cars

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Apple is moving forward with self-driving car technology and is targeting 2024 to produce a passenger vehicle, according to people familiar with the matter. Photo: Reuters

Published: 9:51am, 22 Dec 2020Updated: 9:54am, 22 Dec 2020

Apple is moving forward with self-driving car technology and is targeting 2024 to produce a passenger vehicle that could include its own breakthrough battery technology, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The iPhone maker’s automotive efforts, known as Project Titan, have proceeded unevenly since 2014 when it first started to design its own vehicle from scratch. At one point, Apple drew back the effort to focus on software and reassessed its goals. Doug Field, an Apple veteran who had worked at Tesla, returned to oversee the project in 2018 and laid off 190 people from the team in 2019.

Since then, Apple has progressed enough that it now aims to build a vehicle for consumers, two people familiar with the effort said, asking not to be named because Apple’s plans are not public. Apple’s goal of building a personal vehicle for the mass market contrasts with rivals such as Alphabet’s Waymo, which has built robotaxis to carry passengers for a driverless ride-hailing service.

Central to Apple’s strategy is a new battery design that could “radically” reduce the cost of batteries and increase the vehicle’s range, according to a third person who has seen Apple’s battery design.

Apple declined to comment on its plans or future products.

Making a vehicle represents a supply chain challenge even for Apple, a company with deep pockets that makes hundreds of millions of electronics products each year with parts from around the world, but has never made a car. It took Elon Musk’s Tesla 17 years before it finally turned a sustained profit making cars.

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