Apple eyeing 800,000-square-foot property for autonomous car project, report says
Apple, Google parent company Alphabet and a number of established car makers are reportedly on the hunt for prime real estate in the San Francisco Bay Area to serve their respective autonomous vehicle projects, with Apple in particular said to be looking at an 800,000-square-foot plot.
Apple's undeveloped 43-acre plot in San Jose (red) sits across from the 101 Tech campus (blue), where it leases 300,000 square-feet of office space.
During Hudson Pacific Properties's quarterly earnings call on Thursday, CEO Victor Coleman said his company is seeing a "definitive movement" from self-driving cars and research and development facilities, reports The Wall Street Journal. The comments referenced concerns of Silicon Valley real estate demand amid a perceived slowdown in tech sector growth.
"We're seeing the Toyotas of the world, the Teslas of the world, BMWs, Mercedes. Ford now is out in the marketplace looking for space," Coleman said. "I haven't even mentioned the 400,000 square feet that Google's looking to take down and the 800,000 square feet that Apple's looking to take down for their autonomous cars as well."
The supposed plots are small in comparison to standard car manufacturing plants, including a roughly 5.3 million-square-foot facility operated by electric car pioneer Tesla. Even Apple's own Campus 2 headquarters comes in at around 2.8 million square feet, eclipsing the footprint of the rumored 800,000-square-foot lot mentioned in today's report.
However, Apple is indeed said to be mulling a "Project Titan" expansion, one that could involve the construction of facilities dedicated to R&D and potentially pilot manufacturing. AppleInsider sources in September revealed the company was investigating development potential of a recently purchased site in San Jose. The 43-acre plot currently boasts nearly 2 million square feet of office space that could be converted into an automotive center.
AppleInsider exclusively reported on Apple's top-secret car facilities last year, noting a bulk of R&D operations appeared to be located in a nondescript facility in Sunnyvale, Calif., dubbed "SG5." The company is also rumored to have international teams working on potential branded car offerings, including a small German automotive lab detailed in a report last month
Apple's undeveloped 43-acre plot in San Jose (red) sits across from the 101 Tech campus (blue), where it leases 300,000 square-feet of office space.
During Hudson Pacific Properties's quarterly earnings call on Thursday, CEO Victor Coleman said his company is seeing a "definitive movement" from self-driving cars and research and development facilities, reports The Wall Street Journal. The comments referenced concerns of Silicon Valley real estate demand amid a perceived slowdown in tech sector growth.
"We're seeing the Toyotas of the world, the Teslas of the world, BMWs, Mercedes. Ford now is out in the marketplace looking for space," Coleman said. "I haven't even mentioned the 400,000 square feet that Google's looking to take down and the 800,000 square feet that Apple's looking to take down for their autonomous cars as well."
The supposed plots are small in comparison to standard car manufacturing plants, including a roughly 5.3 million-square-foot facility operated by electric car pioneer Tesla. Even Apple's own Campus 2 headquarters comes in at around 2.8 million square feet, eclipsing the footprint of the rumored 800,000-square-foot lot mentioned in today's report.
However, Apple is indeed said to be mulling a "Project Titan" expansion, one that could involve the construction of facilities dedicated to R&D and potentially pilot manufacturing. AppleInsider sources in September revealed the company was investigating development potential of a recently purchased site in San Jose. The 43-acre plot currently boasts nearly 2 million square feet of office space that could be converted into an automotive center.
AppleInsider exclusively reported on Apple's top-secret car facilities last year, noting a bulk of R&D operations appeared to be located in a nondescript facility in Sunnyvale, Calif., dubbed "SG5." The company is also rumored to have international teams working on potential branded car offerings, including a small German automotive lab detailed in a report last month
Comments
Why should we make it easier for those people? They'll just post more shit.
It's not a doughnut it's a, ugh, torus ...
Getting to the "autonomous future" is about 25% getting the technology perfected, and 75% changing regulations (at multiple levels of government), legal framework, and insurance industry. There may be limited autonomy (e.g. highway driving) in a few states / locations in 5 years, but it will take much longer for all of the pieces to come together to allow truly autonomous vehicles to become mainstream. This isn't changing the world in 10 years - although it might in 20. In the meantime, I would say multiple companies have a chance to get the right products and systems.
Because earthquakes are remote, I think the bigger issue is the land and labor costs. While this might be fine for the short run for development, for actual manufacturing they've got to go where land is cheap and labor is cheaper. It's got to wind up in the South although what would be really great is if once actual manufacturing starts, some of these companies took over the long abandoned U.S. car company manufacturing sites in and around Detroit. I'd bet any of these companies could get very favorable deals from Michigan if they'd bring factories and decent paying jobs there. It would be very sad if these cars wind up getting manufactured in China and shipped to Europe and the U.S.
Like Korea, China or Japan? California is the equal to those places in earthquakes.