Since 2015, rumors about Apple's secret car-building plan "Project Titan" have been exposed from time to time, but they have not been confirmed, so they have always been the talk of major media. In October of that year, Apple CEO Tim Cook said when talking about the automotive industry that the smart car industry would undergo tremendous changes. In the entire system architecture of future cars, the importance of software is increasing day by day.
In 2016, Tesla CEO Musk said that Apple might build a compelling electric car: “If you hire more than a thousand engineers to complete this work, it will be difficult to It’s hidden.”
What’s more interesting is that during this period, Apple and Xpeng Motors also poached many current Tesla employees with high salaries, which led to the creation of Tesla. In the famous scene of suing Xpeng Motors and Apple suing Xpeng Motors, Musk often mocked Xpeng Motors' self-developed technology.
In 2017, Apple’s “Titan” project began to shift to autonomous driving, putting the development of autonomous driving software first.
Cook publicly acknowledged the fact that Apple was developing autonomous driving technology that year. However, news released in the following years showed that the development of Apple's self-driving technology was not going smoothly, and there were even reports of a large number of layoffs in the self-driving R&D department.
In 2018, some media broke the news about automobile patents applied for by Apple, including a sunroof system that uses multiple tracks to slide the roof cover and tactile feedback of a dynamic seat system, but due to the delay, The updated news made the outside world once believe that Apple's car-making has been abandoned halfway.
From 2018 to 2019, Apple applied for a total of 63 related patents. Since the beginning of 2020, Apple has applied for 28 more automobile-related patents.
A recent research report shows that Apple has transferred its self-driving car team under the leadership of its head of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
The research report also suggested that Apple is still deciding whether to launch its own cars or design self-driving systems for other automakers, or release after-sales kits compatible with third-party cars. However, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo insists that Apple will stick to its "car-making" plan and will purchase self-driving car chips from TSMC. "Apple Car" will debut from 2023 to 2025 and will form a partnership with Tesla in the future. Head-to-head competition.
This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.