The Apple Car cometh

Apple’s Project Titan’

Apple has been the topic of many rumours that have been circulating for most of 2015 which has been ranging from advanced high tech interior systems to Apple Car. Now six months from the several rumours with regards to Apple upcoming `Project Titan’, it looks like it is surfacing though majority of these rumours tend to be unconfirmed.

 It is said that Apple’s Titan team has numbered around 600 individuals which is sizable by most standards and if the recent rumours are to be believed, is set to triple very soon. This would be putting a lot of stress on Silicon Valley automotive engineer employment pool.

 Those availing the facilities within a short drive from Apple’s Cupertino headquarters are Ford and many others.The manufacturing plant of Tesla Motors is around 30 minutes from the Highway 880 and has been the most exposed hiring source for Apple with the founder and CEO Elon Musk.

It is said that Apple would be offering $250,000 signing bonuses to entice employees, but it’s Mercedes-Benz that offers the highest profile new hire – Johann Jungwirth. Jungwirth had earlier been the boss at Mercedes Benz Research & Development in North America researching on how to make the car find out where one intends to go, without being told.

Apple – Out-dated Human Piloted Machines

Steve Zadesky of Apple, former Ford engineer who had joined Apple in1999 is the leader of the entire Titan strength and had a big role in the launch of the original iPod and till recently had supervised the iPhone design also. Earlier rumours and reports have fixed the Apple Car as being an autonomous thing but different from Google’s self-driving machines.

With reports regarding Apple meeting with California DMV related to securing autonomous registration for a vehicle, clearly indicates the autonomous competences for the vehicle. But the recent report show that Apple would be coming up with a more out-dated human piloted machines.

The same reports fixed 2019 as the probable date for a presumed Apple Car which will be four years from now and presuming that Apple has been working on it for about a year it would fall in-line with the usual five year vehicle cycle of production.

Volvo Partially Selling autonomous Cars - 2017

It is the cycle period which is usually perceived when a developer tends to release a new version of the prevailing vehicle. For instances the new version of Porsche 911 which had been unveiled recently in Frankfurt was in development for around five years and in the grand scheme of things, it was a comparatively trivial update with new engines, new suspension tunings in addition to Apple’s CarPlay.

But the things tend to change and the Ford CTs design cycle took around 14 months, from ideation to Detroit debut. It would then be another two years thereafter before the car would be made available in the market if Apple intends to unveil the car in 2019 which is said to be greatly optimistic for a fully autonomous machine to hit the streets of America. This would aim on the need of a driver for the Apple Car though not 100% of the time. Volvo would be partially selling autonomous cars by 2017.