Apple’s Project Titan has been one of the most secretive endeavors in the automotive industry. The company has been working on this project for many years, with its ups and downs. Although it was reportedly almost scrapped at one point, it is now back to full speed.
Thanks to regulatory filings and other public information, we get glimpses of what’s happening behind the scenes. Recently, macReports reached out to the DMV in California and pulled public records of autonomous vehicle testing, giving us a better understanding of the project’s progress.
In California, every driver and vehicle involved in autonomous technology testing must be registered with the DMV and have special permits to drive on public roads. According to the records, Apple’s autonomous driving dream has reached an impressive size, with the company now having 201 test drivers and a fleet of 67 test vehicles.
Over the years, Project Titan has evolved into three separate programs. While the autonomous car has been on and off the drawing board many times over, autonomous driving technology took its own course. Apple aims to leverage its expertise in hardware and software to develop advanced self-driving tech and achieve it before its rivals.
The second part of Project Titan is Apple CarPlay, which essentially becomes an operating system for any vehicle. The latest edition of the software will be introduced later this year on multiple vehicles, fully integrating with the cars and supporting all the main functions.
Finally, the Apple car itself has gone back and forth on its development. The company initially had the idea of creating a people’s car before transitioning to a luxury electric vehicle and then back to an everyday EV.
One of the primary concerns with autonomous driving is safety. Since January of this year, Apple has only recorded one minor collision, which occurred while the car was in manual mode, indicating human error. Since the company began testing autonomous technology, it has reported 16 collisions, significantly less than Waymo and Cruise.
Apple has yet to apply for a driverless permit, and test drivers are always behind the wheel of test vehicles. Despite this, the progress made by Project Titan is impressive, and it will be exciting to see what Apple brings to the table in the future.
