Apple accelerates driverless car test.
Adding fuel to rumors that Apple is working on designs for a car, local officials say engineers for the giant tech company recently made inquiries about a former navy base that’s been converted into a testing ground for self-driving cars and other cutting-edge vehicles. According to documents obtained by The Guardian, the technology giant is searching for a location to test the autonomous vehicles to rival designs already manufactured by Google.Just one day after Apple designer Marc Newson made some intriguing statements about car design, The Guardian is serving up another hot Apple Car rumor.
Apple, which is best known for making iPhones and Mac computers, hasn’t said what kind of testing it hoped to conduct at the GoMentum Station automotive testing facility, which used to be a naval station in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Concord. “We don’t know. That would strongly suggest the company is moving forward with a rumored plan to make cars — possibly in search of continued growth as its traditional (and ridiculously successful) businesses level out. Apple had been known to be looking into the technology and has hired several car engineers, but the prospect of it having a vehicle to test suggests its plans are far more developed than previously thought.
Here it is on Google Maps: It was first reported in February 2015 that Apple has employed up to 1,000 employees for the mysterious Project Titan, which is believed to be automotive-related. It could be an iPhone,” joked Jack Hall, program manager for connected vehicles and autonomous vehicles at GoMentum Station, which is operated by the Contra Costa Transportation Authority. There are a number of other possibilities that are still in the running — Apple could want to build a car platform, for instance, just as Google seems to be doing, without making or selling cars itself. The agency is promoting a portion of the former Concord Naval Weapons Station as an ideal testing facility for carmakers and tech companies working on automotive technology. The 5,000–acre former navy weapons station, featuring 20 miles of paved roadway, is the largest secure test facility in the world and will become the center of CV/AV research.” Given the size of the facility, Apple would likely have to share the space with other companies, like Honda.
But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that this is the real deal: Apple is indeed going to make an actual Apple Car, debut it at a WWDC-like event, stick it in Apple Stores, and have you drive it home. (Or, perhaps have it drive you home.) In its report, The Guardian suggests that the project could be “further along than many suspected” because of Apple’s current interest in finding testing facilities. Previous reports have speculated that that Apple’s car was simply electric, with others suggesting it was self-driving, and even more suggesting that Apple might be looking at a myriad of possible technologies and vehicles.
For them, the entire story arc takes five years — from requirements-gathering to production — and that’s for an experienced automaker with all the key employees already in place and many decades of understanding on how to actually make a road-going vehicle. (Cook, as evidenced by his recent BMW visit, is still trying to figure out how they’re manufactured.) And even if you argue that a new entrant can blow up the process and do things more quickly and efficiently, there’s evidence that doesn’t really hold up. It’s not clear how far along Apple is in designing the car internally, but it only hired Marc Newson — the man most likely responsible for the look of the car alongside Jony Ive — a little less than a year ago.
The information from the CCTA confirms a report in the Guardian earlier today that said Apple engineers met in May with officials from GoMentum Station. The Guardian also quoted another official at the transportation authority who said Apple insisted on a non-disclosure agreement which barred him from saying any more. If Apple intends to make its car self-driving in some capacity (as it almost certainly does, especially considering that it’s looking at autonomous car testing sites), it’ll need to start testing systems and components years before it has an actual car ready. That’s assuming Apple even sees the project all the way to its conclusion; it’s certainly possible Apple might scrap the idea entirely if its results don’t pan out.
Jeff Williams, a Senior VP at Apple, said, “The car is the ultimate mobile device” when asked what it was going to do with its very large cash supply at this year’s Code Conference. My guess is that they’ll cobble sensors and computers on other cars — as Google did, long before it made cars of its own — and get those honed while another team works on the actual in-house vehicle. Analysts say Apple has the financial wherewithal and ambition to pursue such a project, although some believe it’s more likely interested in developing software for use in cars made by other companies. Meanwhile, there will be bureaucracies to fight on multiple fronts, both with autonomous driving systems and with getting a production car approved for domestic sale. Other evidence of Apple’s interest in cars has surfaced in recent months, including a lawsuit in which a Massachusetts startup working on electric car batteries accused Apple of poaching some of its engineers.
Prominent Apple-designer Marc Newson also described modern car design as being “at the bottom of a trough” an an interview with the Wall Street Journal Thursday. For Apple traditionalists who are accustomed to the pace of consumer technology and seeing a new iPhone every year, this is going to look and feel a little different: making a car isn’t much like making a phone, and testing automotive systems in 2015 doesn’t mean there’ll be a car on sale in 2016.