Apple car has been revealed to be downgraded: it does not support fully self-driving, sells for less than $100000, and will be launched in 2026
CTOnews.com, December 7 (Xinhua)-- Apple has scaled back its Apple car program, and the company no longer plans to release fully self-driving cars, Bloomberg reported.
CTOnews.com learned that Apple originally wanted to build a self-driving car without a steering wheel and throttle, but has now decided that such a plan is not feasible for now. The car will have the self-driving function of working on the highway, the report said.
The car will have a custom processor designed by Apple to drive artificial intelligence functions, similar to Mac, iPhone and iPad. The chip is the equivalent of the four most high-end Mac chips and is almost ready for production. The car will also have a range of customized lidar sensors, radar sensors and camera arrays that can provide positioning information, lane data, and direction compared to people and objects.
Apple will use cloud computing for some artificial intelligence processing, and the company is considering setting up a remote command center that can assist drivers and control cars from a distance in case of emergency, and possibly provide its own insurance plan. Apple's downgraded vehicles will have a driver's seat, steering wheel and pedals, just like ordinary cars. Passengers will be allowed to do some things on the highway, such as watching movies. The car will sound an alarm when it needs to switch to manual control on city streets or in bad weather, and the self-driving part may be limited to North America when it is launched.
Since Apple launched the Apple car project in 2014, the project has undergone several changes in development. Apple initially planned to develop a complete car, and then in 2016, there were rumors that the car plan had been shelved and that Apple would develop some kind of self-driving system for other vehicles. By 2020, self-driving vehicles are scheduled to restart, and Apple is testing self-driving technology in the SUV in the San Francisco Bay area, but it seems that the full self-driving feature was not ready when the first Apple car was launched.
Apple's auto team has also undergone several leadership changes, with John Janandria, director of artificial intelligence and machine learning, leading the Apple car project. Kevin Lynch, famous for his Apple Watch work, is also overseeing the car.
Apple now aims to launch a consumer-oriented Apple-branded car by 2026, with a price below $100000 to attract more customers, Bloomberg reported. Apple's original plan was to set the price of the Apple car at more than $120000, but now plans to lower the price, which may be due to more restrictions on the self-driving function of the first version of the car. Apple has not yet finalized the design of the Apple car, but plans to complete the design by 2023 and prepare a list of features by 2024. Testing will begin in 2025 and is scheduled to be launched in 2026.
