√Apple electric-car pushed back to 2026, autonomous technology in doubt

Apple’s electric car will not be fully-autonomous, with major design changes forcing the US tech giant to delay the project’s launch, according to overseas reports.

US tech giant Apple has reportedly delayed the launch of its secretive electric-car project to 2026, with overseas media claiming the vehicle’s autonomous driving capabilities will be significantly scaled back.

As reported by news agency Bloomberg, the US publication said Apple insiders claim its autonomous electric car – internally known as Titan – is now scheduled to launch in 2026, one year later than previous projections.

The report noted the project has been in doubt for “several months”, with Apple executives conceding its ambition of launching a fully-autonomous car – with no steering wheel or pedals – is not possible with current technology.

Such a car would be defined as a ‘Level 5’ autonomous vehicle, as it requires no intervention from its occupants. There are currently no cars in the world capable of achieving Level 5 autonomy.

At present, Level 2 systems are the most advanced which have been approved for Australian roads – requiring drivers to keep their hands on the steering wheel while operating functions such as adaptive cruise control and lane-keep assist.

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According to Bloomberg, the Apple electric car will be equipped with a steering wheel and pedals, although it will retain Level 2 autonomous capabilities which can be used on highways – similar to Tesla’s top-of-the-range system, marketed as ‘Full Self-Driving’.

While Apple first announced it was working on autonomous car technology in June 2017, the US tech giant has never officially confirmed it is working on its own dedicated electric car.

Despite this, it is understood Apple has hired a number of engineers from car companies such as Lamborghini, Tesla, Volkswagen, Ford, and Mercedes-Benz to work on the project.

In August this year, former Apple employee Xiaolang Zhang pleaded guilty to stealing trade secrets from the electric-car project in 2018.

Mr Zhang reportedly downloaded the plans for a circuit board and 24GB of “highly problematic” data, intending to pass on the stolen information to Chinese electric car start-up XPeng.

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