First Apple Car to Be Fully Autonomous and Designed to Operate Without a Driver
The first Apple Car that's released will not be designed to operate with a driver, according to a report from CNBC that cites multiple unnamed sources with knowledge of Apple's plans. "These will be autonomous, electric vehicles designed to operate without a driver and focused on the last mile," said one of the people.
CNBC speculates that the initial Apple Cars could be designed for food delivery operations and firms that incorporate robotaxis. Self-driving robotaxis are available in China, and in the United States, companies like Waymo have tested public robotaxi programs. Many vehicle manufacturers working on autonomous technology are also planning for robotaxi services.
The tidbit about Apple's aim to produce a driverless car comes in a wider report that suggests Apple is close to finalizing an Apple Car deal with Hyundai affiliate Kia, which echoes several other reports suggesting a deal is brewing between Hyundai and Apple.
CNBC suggests that the Apple Car will be manufactured at the Kia assembly plant in West Point, Georgia under the terms of the agreement. No deal has yet been reached, however, and Apple could decide to work with another automaker entirely or choose a secondary partner to work with alongside Hyundai.
According to CNBC's sources, Apple has decided to pursue a partnership with Hyundai-Kia because the deal gives Apple access to an established automaker with the capability to produce vehicles in North America. Hyundai-Kia is also willing to give Apple control over both the Apple Car software and the hardware, with Apple planning for a full Apple-branded vehicle and not a Kia model that includes Apple software.
Hyundai-Kia executives believe that working with Apple will allow them to accelerate their own autonomous and electric vehicle plans.
Apple is said to be aiming to have the Apple Car in production in 2024, though it's possible that timeline will be delayed as work on the Apple Car is still in the early stages. Bloomberg recently said it would be five to seven years before an Apple Car is ready to launch, while Apple analyst Ming-Chu Kuo said this week that he expects to see the Apple Car in 2025 at the earliest.
Popular Stories
Apple today seeded the first betas of upcoming iOS 18.3 and iPadOS 18.3 updates to developers for testing purposes, with the software coming a week after Apple released iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2.
iOS 18.3 and iPadOS 18.3 can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software update.
There's no word yet on what's included in iOS 18.3 and iPadOS 18.3, ...
The current Apple TV 4K was released more than two years ago, so the streaming device is becoming due for a hardware upgrade soon. Fortunately, it was recently rumored that a new Apple TV will launch at some point next year.
Below, we recap rumors about the next-generation Apple TV.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman last week reported that Apple has been working on its own combined Wi-Fi and...
Apple is planning a series of "major design" and "format changes" for iPhones over the next few years, according to The Wall Street Journal's Aaron Tilley and Yang Jie.
The paywalled report published today corroborated the widely-rumored "iPhone 17 Air" with an "ultrathin" design that is thinner than current iPhone models. The report did not mention a specific measurement, but previous...
Apple released iOS 18.2 in the second week of December, bringing the second round of Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. This update brings several major advancements to Apple's AI integration, including completely new image generation tools and a range of Visual Intelligence-based enhancements. Apple has added a handful of new non-AI related feature controls as...
Apple on Monday seeded the first tvOS 18.3 beta to developers for testing. The update will likely be released in January. So far, there are only minor changes for the Apple TV, with one new feature and a few code changes discovered.
Below, we outline what is new in tvOS 18.3 so far.
Robot Vacuum Support in Home App
First, tvOS 18.3 will add robot vacuum support to the Home app on the...
Contrary to recent reports, the iPhone 17 Pro will not feature a horizontal camera layout, according to the leaker known as "Instant Digital."
In a new post on Weibo, the leaker said that a source has confirmed that while the appearance of the back of the iPhone 17 Pro has indeed changed, the layout of the three cameras is "still triangular," rather than the "horizontal bar spread on the...
