Mexican Media Brands
Report: Apple Aims for Autonomous Driving Control System by Late 2017
Apple Inc. has overhauled its secret electric-car car program, dubbed Project Titan, to focus on control software for autonomous vehicles, sources tell Bloomberg News.
Share
Apple Inc. reportedly has deployed dozens of software engineers in an office outside Canada’s capital in Ottawa, Ontario, to develop an operating system for self-driving cars.
Many of those staffers have been hired within the past year from Canadian vehicle software developer QNX Software Systems Ltd., a unit of BlackBerry Ltd. Sources tell Bloomberg News the team is housed in an Apple office near QNX’s office in the Ottawa suburb of Kanata.
Apple’s vehicle OS development work is headed by QNX founder Dan Dodge, who quit as the Canadian company’s CEO to join Apple in July. Bloomberg says Apple has courted QNX employees because of their expertise in the basic software required to manage electric powertrain operations.
Developing a core operating system is part of Apple’s secretive Project Titan that originally aimed to develop a self-driving electric car. Reports say the project’s focus has shifted to the more immediate goal of developing a software platform for autonomous vehicles. Apple expects to decide by the end of next year whether the system it develops is viable, according to Bloomberg’s sources.
A separate team of Apple software engineers is creating applications such as voice-activated navigation that would run on the Apple operating system, the sources add. They say yet another team is developing simulators to test self-driving software without requiring physical cars operating on public roads.
RELATED CONTENT
-
On Electric Pickups, Flying Taxis, and Auto Industry Transformation
Ford goes for vertical integration, DENSO and Honeywell take to the skies, how suppliers feel about their customers, how vehicle customers feel about shopping, and insights from a software exec
-
Mustang Changes for 2018
On Tuesday Ford unveiled—using the social media channels of actor Dwayne Johnson (this has got to unnerve some of the auto buff book editors)—the 2018 Mustang, which has undergone some modifications: under the hood (the 3.7-liter V6 is giving way to a 2.3-liter EcoBoost four, and a 10-speed automatic is available), on the dash (a 12-inch, all-digital LCD screen is available for the dashboard), at the tires (12 wheel choices), on the chassis (MagneRide damper technology is being offered with the Mustang Performance Package), and on the exterior (three new paint colors). And while on the subject of the exterior, there are some notable changes—a lower, remodeled hood, repositioned hood vents, new upper and lower front grilles, LED front lights, revised LED taillamps, new rear bumper and fascia.
-
On Fuel Cells, Battery Enclosures, and Lucid Air
A skateboard for fuel cells, building a better battery enclosure, what ADAS does, a big engine for boats, the curious case of lean production, what drivers think, and why Lucid is remarkable
