Six months after the Apple Car was unofficially announced, the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) canceled its autonomous vehicle testing permit, according to an article in macReports. Enough to definitively bury Apple’s autonomous car.
Cancellation of the license
The DMV confirmed the cancellation at Apple’s request on September 27. This permit, obtained in 2017, allowed Apple to test autonomous Lexus SUVs with a safety driver on California roads, and would have been valid until 2025. This decision marks the end of Apple’s electric vehicle project, which had been going on for years.
A titanic project
For nearly a decade, the company had explored the idea of developing an electric vehicle incorporating autonomous driving technology, known as Project Titan. Although official details remained unclear, information had leaked regarding the potential features of this car, often referred to as the Apple Car.
The Apple Car would have been a fully electric vehicle, in line with trends in the automotive market aimed at reducing CO2 emissions. However, its real advantage would have resided in a seamless integration with the Apple ecosystem, allowing users to enjoy a unique connected experience. This included advanced AI navigation systems, level 5 autonomous driving (i.e. without any human intervention required), as well as user interface innovations, taking advantage of immersive displays, LiDAR and augmented reality technologies. Some, like Bloomberg, even spoke of a vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals.
In comparison, Tesla, with its Cybercab, has already started to present concrete solutions for autonomous fleet transportation. Unlike Apple, Tesla has made notable progress with its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) system, which, although still in development, are active on thousands of vehicles around the world. The Cybercab, a concept born from this vision, will be a fully autonomous vehicle, designed to reduce public transport costs by minimizing human intervention, while maximizing efficiency through artificial intelligence algorithms and charging infrastructure massive.
Apple’s choice to abandon the Apple Car therefore contrasts with the approach of Tesla, which was able to capitalize on field experience with vehicles like the Model S or the Model 3, while investing in the development of solutions ambitious autonomous organizations. The one we thought capable of tackling all markets seems to have favored other areas of technological innovation, like recent advances in mixed reality or in the optimization of connected services. But the Vision Pro does not seem to measure up to an Apple Car in terms of impact…
