Lukáš Čambala The diary came up with a big catch The Guardian, who succeeded find out, that Apple continues to work on its "car" project. According to his information, the Californian giant is looking at possible locations where it could start testing its self-driving car, which according to some he works.
For testing an autonomous vehicle, Apple could use the GoMentum station, located near San Francisco, which is supposed to be the largest secure test site in the world. GoMentum originally served as a weapons warehouse, and now the facility with more than 30 kilometers of roads suitable for testing autonomous vehicles is guarded by the army.
Honda and Mercedes-Benz, for example, have already tested their cars at GoMentum, and Apple would now like to join them as well. In May, engineers from Apple's Special Projects team met with representatives of GoMentum, and Frank Fearon in correspondence obtained Guardian then asked when and under what conditions it would be possible to use the strictly guarded premises.
Randy Iwasaki, chief executive of the company that owns GoMentum, declined to be specific about the non-disclosure agreement, but said: "All we can say is that Apple came to us and was interested."
The so-called the "Titan" project, as the development of the apple product associated with the automotive industry is called, is apparently really underway. However, it is still not at all clear what final product we will see from Apple. Of course, the most ambitious would be to create your own autonomous vehicle, let's say the Apple Car, but in the end the direct sale of an Apple-branded car may not happen at all.
There is also talk of other variants, such as that Apple, following the example of some others, could just develop a certain platform or technology for cars, which it would then provide to other car companies. And even if he does end up working on his own self-driving car, just because he's looking for places to test it in 2015 doesn't mean we should wait until next year, for example.
The earliest possible date would seem to be now this year the mentioned year 2020. For example, in the example of BMW, we can see that the development of their car took five years, and the German car company already had decades of experience in the development of cars in general and had all the necessary resources available. Even Tesla, which showed the Model X in 2012, does not yet have it ready for sale. Last but not least, there are absolutely necessary approvals from various authorities regarding safety and other car-related matters.
