Apple Car delayed until 2028, but without one of its most anticipated features

Apple’s plans to create an autonomous vehicle, known as the Apple Car, are not going as expected. In accordance with Bloombergcompany delayed the launch againor – this time for two years longer than previously planned – and agreed to limit some functions related to autonomous driving.

The above-mentioned media confirms that Apple is now planning to make its own autonomous and electric car will be released sometime in 2028. This is the second time that the Cupertino firm has delayed the launch of the Apple Car, as it was originally scheduled for 2025 and they later set 2026 as the year for the official announcement of the first model.

According to some reports, The Apple car has been in development since 2014. That is, from the moment the company began working on this project, which has the internal name “Titan,” 14 years will pass until its official launch.

Apple Car will have lower levels of autonomous driving than expected

The delay in the official announcement isn’t the only bad news related to the Apple Car. Bloomberg states that after several meetings with those responsible for the development of Apple’s electric and autonomous car, including Kevin Lynch, the head of the project, and which were attended by Tim Cook, the company’s CEO, it was agreed to limit self-driving technology to “Level 2+”. This means that the Apple Car will be able to stay in the center of its lane autonomously and at the same time with the help of adaptive cruise control.

This is two times lower than originally planned. Apple in particular I was hoping to enable level 4 autonomous driving. In this case, the vehicle does not require human intervention to complete the trip, since it is able to know the traffic situation, determine the route, and much more.

The meetings, as indicated by the aforementioned media, also helped the council put pressure on those responsible for the project during 2023.

Difficulties in the project

There are still many details to be learned about the Apple Car, but the latest information suggests that the car won’t be as futuristic or advanced as originally expected. In fact, in the first years of its development The possibility was taken into account that the car would not have a steering wheel or pedals.; thus being completely autonomous. However, the tests did not give the results that the team in charge of the project expected. In fact, according to the report, one of the vehicles testing the software nearly hit a pedestrian crossing a crosswalk.

To this must be added changes that have significantly slowed down the development of the Apple Car. Doug Field’s departure, one of the people most responsible for the project. Field left Apple to join Ford as the company’s director of advanced technologies and embedded systems for autonomous driving.

Meanwhile, as stated BloombergManzana spends ‘hundreds of millions of dollars a year’ amid a wave of layoffs to advance Project Titan and prepare its autonomous vehicle to compete with the likes of Tesla, Ford, GMC or Rivian.