Apple Car

According to a report from Silicon Valley Business Journal, Apple has recently leased a 96,000-square-foot industrial property in Sunnyvale, California. The property was originally home to a Pepsi bottling plant, but Apple now occupies the entire space. It has widely been reported in the past that Apple is testing its Project Titan electric car initiative in Sunnyvale, with the company reportedly operating a shell company called Sixty Eight Research out of the city.

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Tim Cook and company lead Apple’s annual shareholders meeting of 2016 this morning, and as usual there were some interesting questions and answers between those in attendance. Like last year, Apple’s rumored electric vehicle project came up, only the Apple CEO didn’t automatically defer to CarPlay this go around. Diversity and Apple’s ongoing battle with the FBI over encryption were also topics of discussion at the Cupertino meeting at Apple HQ.

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In a Fortune interview with Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO suggested that Apple is not yet committed to making a car, but is only exploring the idea at this stage. Asked by Adam Lashinsky why Apple wouldn’t comment on its plans given that it is known to have acquired a high-profile team to work on the project, Cook said hiring people wasn’t the point at which the company committed itself.

We don’t have to spend large amounts to explore. So I can’t talk about this certain area that you’re talking about. But when we start spending large amounts of money, we’re committed at that point. But we explore things with teams of people. And that’s a part of being curious […]

Once we start spending gobs of money—like when we start spending on tooling and things like that—we’re committed … 

Lashinsky also asked how Cook responded to ‘peak iPhone‘ concerns …

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It’s kind of an “open-secret” in the auto and tech industries that Apple is developing an electric vehicle codenamed “Project Titan”, yet for the most part, the Cupertino-based company has been able to keep details under wraps.

In helping keep any development secret, Apple is believed to be using a shell company called Sixty Eight Research based in Sunnyvale, California. Neighbors have recently been reporting heavy security presence and a lot of noise around the location. 
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As our sister-site Electrek covers so well, the automobile landscape is clearly changing with electric vehicles replacing gas-powered cars, autonomous features potentially replacing drivers, and Apple even developing an EV of its own. But Porsche wants no part in that future, says CEO Oliver Blume. Reuters reports that Blume told German media this week essentially that a Porsche is meant to be driven, and that an iPhone is meant for your pocket, not the road:

“One wants to drive a Porsche by oneself,” Blume said in an interview with regional newspaper Westfalen-Blatt published on Monday.

“An iPhone belongs in your pocket, not on the road,” Blume added, saying that Porsche did not need to team up with any big technology companies.

While Blume was using the iPhone line largely to explain away the need for computerized vehicles and embrace the nature of high-performance cars like Porsches, it’s a curious one as the new 911 features Apple’s CarPlay …

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Since Tesla launched the Model S in 2012, the automaker has been talking about releasing a software development kit (SDK) to create a full third-party app ecosystem for its 17-inch touchscreen, which acts as a center console for the Model S and X, but despite several inquiries from eager app developers, there has been little communication about the project until now.
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According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, the Apple veteran employee who has been overseeing the company’s “Project Titan” electric car initiative is leaving the company. The report, citing “people familiar with the matter,” says Steve Zadesky, who has been with Apple for 16 years, is leaving the company for “personal reasons.”

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Rumors of Apple Car (codename ‘Project Titan’) continue to swirl and there’s plenty time left for Apple to solidify or change its plans, given the expected launch of the new automobile is still five years away. However, that isn’t stopping car company executives weighing in on the rumors. Whilst GM execs diss the idea of Apple investing in an electric car as a ‘gigantic money pit’, an executive from Ford seems enthused by the prospect. In an interview with Trusted Reviews,  Don Butler, Executive Director for Ford Connected Vehicles, said that they welcome competition and thinks technology companies can pull it off.

“We welcome others joining. We welcome the activity that’s in the space. We think it’s exciting. It’s actually changed that we are embracing,” said Butler, speaking to TrustedReviews at the CES 2016 tradeshow in Las Vegas. “So I think Apple can do it. I think Google can do it.”

Watch the full interview in the video after the break …

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During an interview at Tesla’s design Studio in Los Angeles, Tesla CEO Elon Musk commented on Apple’s rumored electric vehicle program, codenamed “Project Titan“. It was hardly the first time the CEO commented on the project, but it always interesting to hear about the possibility of Apple bringing an electric car to market. This time Musk called the project under-development an “open secret” and agreed that Apple is “serious about it.”
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While ‘Apple Car‘ is still a highly rumored project that really gained momentum last year, Apple hasn’t officially acknowledged its electric vehicle project publicly yet. Instead, Apple executives have cleverly referenced the rumors during media events while Tim Cook has resisted denying the project. The biggest tease to date comes in the form of new car-related domain names registered to the company that are likely related to the so-called Project Titan.

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After just over a year at Apple, former Mercedes R&D chief Johann Jungwirth left the company earlier this month to join Volkswagen AG as the new ‘Head of Digital Transformation’. Even though his official title at Apple was “Director of Mac Systems Engineering”, the executive was rumored to be working on the company’s electric car codenamed “Project Titan” due to his extensive automotive background and the timing of the hire, which was followed by several other engineering hires with experience in the auto industry.
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Although Apple has yet to confirm the existence of “Project Titan,” it seems like every week brings a new clue that the company is indeed working on an electric car. We learned that Sixty Eight Research, a sketchy firm widely believe to be a front for Apple’s effort in the automotive business, recently attended the 17th Global Car Body Benchmarking Conference in Germany.
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Last week on our sister-site Electrek, we reported on Faraday Future (FF), a well-funded California-based startup looking to invest $1 billion to build an electric vehicle factory in the US. Due to the company refusing to disclose its CEO or investors, some media outlets have been reporting that it could be a front for Apple’s Project Titan.

But it isn’t likely for Apple to have any involvement with the company since everything points to it being backed by the Chinese technology company LeTV.
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Original story from Electrek.

Digital license plates are a relatively new concept that could open up the transport industry to an array of new features. Beyond the Big Brother-like properties the implementation of the technology could enable, like location tracking or alerts for expired registrations, it could also greatly facilitate fleet management and transfer of ownership – things that are crucial for the future of mobility to embrace autonomous driving and ride-sharing.

We learned that among Apple’s hundreds of recent hires with automotive experience, the company hired a veteran software engineer with an expertise in fleet management software and especially digital license plates.
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Tony Fadell, often called the “father of the iPod” and now CEO of Alphabet’s Nest, is on Bloomberg TV today to discuss his time at Apple, the future of mobility and his current effort in the connected home industry. During the interview, Fadell revealed that back in 2008, he had discussions with then Apple CEO Steve Jobs about what an ‘Apple car’ would look like and how the company could approach such a project…
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While we can’t say for sure that an Apple Car will ever go on sale, it’s a certainty by this point that the company is devoting substantial development resources to the project. Tim Cook said recently that there would be “massive change” in the car industry, and that “autonomous driving becomes much more important.”

But as a recent opinion piece on sister site Electrek argued, and Elon Musk warned, actually manufacturing a car is massively more complex than making consumer electronics devices. Apple will therefore be looking for partners to pull together different elements of the car. Re/code has put together an interesting look at the most likely candidates … 
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Following CEO Tim Cook saying that the car industry is ripe for a major disruption, Re/code reports that Apple has hired Jonathan Cohen, Nvidia’s director of deep learning. While many only associate Nvidia with phone and computer chips, the company has recently been entering the car market, specifically in the form of autonomous vehicles.

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In its continued research into distracted driving, the American Automobile Association (AAA) today published the results of its latest study that aimed to show the level of mental distraction related to using voice commands on the road. The study included using the iPhone’s Siri voice commands for making calls and changing music while driving and compared those results with using voice activated systems from car manufacturers and other smartphone makers.
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