Apple building large car drive rooms as Project Titan lives on
Apple's "Project Titan" lives on, as the company is reportedly building large drive rooms in California for continued testing, and developing advanced battery technology.
Mockup of an Apple electric car (based on a Tesla)
Financial analyst Craig Irwin of Roth Capital Partners claims that as well as previously trying to buy Tesla, Apple is today very much continuing with its Project Titan car plans.
"Apple is building multiple very large drive rooms in California," Irwin told CNBC. "What does that mean? They're doing something interesting and exciting on the battery side. Project Titan is absolutely not dead."
Irwin was speaking to CNBC about the current financial situation of Tesla, which he says Apple previously bid to buy.
Irwin did not define "drive room," as it pertains to automobiles. However, he meant that Apple is making substantial physical effort into batteries and drive systems for the car. It's possible that he's referring to the kind of facility that AppleInsider discovered in 2015, an undisclosed seven-building campus in Sunnyvale, Cupertino.
At this time, Project Titan was believed to be the genesis of an Apple car. It was thought that Apple was aiming to make a complete vehicle itself and certain published patents appeared to back this up.
However, in 2016, Apple reportedly laid off dozens of Project Titan employees, as it seemed to move toward developing systems for other motor companies instead. Rather than any car hardware, it was apparently going to produce software instead.
At this time, Project Titan was being run by Steve Zadesky but he, too, was let go and instead retired Apple engineering head Bob Mansfield returned to the company to take over.
In 2017, rumors of Apple doing more than just software for self-driving cars surfaced with a report of the company working with Chinese firm Contemporary Amperex Technology on developing batteries. Then the following year, an Apple patent for high-voltage battery power converters in sports cars, surfaced.
Yet Apple was again to lay off more employees in 2019, this time around 200, in what was called a restructuring effort.
However, in March 2019, it was revealed that Apple has hired former Tesla employees including its vice president in charge of powertrains, engineer Michael Schwekutsch.
Extract from a 2019 Apple patent covering extra wide-opening car doors
Most recently, further patents have appeared which cover car doors that open extremely wide, variable light controls, and even a smart seatbelt system.
Mockup of an Apple electric car (based on a Tesla)
Financial analyst Craig Irwin of Roth Capital Partners claims that as well as previously trying to buy Tesla, Apple is today very much continuing with its Project Titan car plans.
"Apple is building multiple very large drive rooms in California," Irwin told CNBC. "What does that mean? They're doing something interesting and exciting on the battery side. Project Titan is absolutely not dead."
Irwin was speaking to CNBC about the current financial situation of Tesla, which he says Apple previously bid to buy.
Irwin did not define "drive room," as it pertains to automobiles. However, he meant that Apple is making substantial physical effort into batteries and drive systems for the car. It's possible that he's referring to the kind of facility that AppleInsider discovered in 2015, an undisclosed seven-building campus in Sunnyvale, Cupertino.
At this time, Project Titan was believed to be the genesis of an Apple car. It was thought that Apple was aiming to make a complete vehicle itself and certain published patents appeared to back this up.
However, in 2016, Apple reportedly laid off dozens of Project Titan employees, as it seemed to move toward developing systems for other motor companies instead. Rather than any car hardware, it was apparently going to produce software instead.
At this time, Project Titan was being run by Steve Zadesky but he, too, was let go and instead retired Apple engineering head Bob Mansfield returned to the company to take over.
In 2017, rumors of Apple doing more than just software for self-driving cars surfaced with a report of the company working with Chinese firm Contemporary Amperex Technology on developing batteries. Then the following year, an Apple patent for high-voltage battery power converters in sports cars, surfaced.
Yet Apple was again to lay off more employees in 2019, this time around 200, in what was called a restructuring effort.
However, in March 2019, it was revealed that Apple has hired former Tesla employees including its vice president in charge of powertrains, engineer Michael Schwekutsch.
Extract from a 2019 Apple patent covering extra wide-opening car doors
Most recently, further patents have appeared which cover car doors that open extremely wide, variable light controls, and even a smart seatbelt system.
Comments
All this story tells us is that outsiders still have no idea what is going on inside Apple with regards to a car project. Everything is conjecture.
But, all those fancy concept car designs are blown away when they have to meet safety standards. As soon as rollover protections, safety system requirements (air bags, side impact, et al), environmental requirements (noise, rain) are met, they either have to add the pillar bag in or the doors become 500 lb monstrosities.
My i3 doesn’t have a central pillar, for an out of control designer’s dream I’m sure, and the doors are thick. The vehicle is also <3000 lb, which helps in it being pillarless, but I would trade it for a pillar and a real rear door than the current suicide doors.
I do like the double sliding door idea though.
The big deal is the go-to-market strategy, especially if they want to ramp with say 40k vehicles the first couple of years. They need an assembler and the capital costs aren’t cheap for that. They need to secure components, and the crucial components, the battery and probably the motors too, won’t be cheap and are in short supply. They need a retail strategy, and the current options stink because it is either dealing with the dealer network mafia or be gated by direct sales which is illegal in like 15 states (guessing, don’t know the real number). They need a support strategy. Who will service and fix the cars? They need a charging strategy. CCS or Chademo? They will have to invest billions to get charging stations up and running.
Who knows about the politics and which politicians they need to convince to make it all work. This is just as important as all the technical stuff of having a working product. There will be bribes. They’ll need to support a network of organizations that continually monitor politicians and what they are doing regarding registration fees, dealer rules, taxes, who knows what else. If anything, this is where Tesla has failed and is failing.
Apple's hiring process seems to go something like this:
Come up with an idea.
Implement the idea.
Become successful with the idea.
Apple hires you and your idea if it aligns to their goals.
Apple hires people who don't actually need to work for Apple.
Pretty much. But there's clickbait gold in uninformed guesswork.
Beat me to it. Every time an Apple project is rumored, CEOs in that industry shake in their boots and start talking trash.
Sony(Apple TV games), Pebble (Apple Watch), etc.
Heres the leaks!!!
Leaks are coming out!!!
/s