Saturday, 15 August 2015

Apple car — much speculation — now some documentation

An Apple car has been the subject of speculation for some time. Recently, rumors have become more frequent. Electric propulsion & autonomous driving are common suggestions. Now, there seems to be some documentary evidence.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/14/apple-self-driving-car-project-titan-sooner-than-expected

It is likely to look different than other vehilces — partly because that is generally the Apple way — & because Apple designers Jony Ive & Marc Newson hate how modern cars look.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/14/9154871/apple-marc-newson-hates-modern-car-design

http://thenextweb.com/opinion/2015/02/16/jony-ives-car-snob-shouldnt-want-design-next-ride/

Perhaps a car based on the BMW i3 will look different enough.


Credit: AutoNet

http://9to5mac.com/2015/07/24/apple-bmw-negotiations/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/brookecrothers/2015/07/29/apple-eyed-bmw-i3-as-a-design-for-electric-car-report/ / Apple building self-driving car Silicon Valley secure locations San Francisco Bay area test documents show rumoured Apple car project further along suspected engineers Apple’s secretive Special Project group met with officials GoMentum Station 2,100-acre former naval base near San Francisco high-security testing ground autonomous vehicles correspondence the Guardian public records act request Apple engineer Frank Fearon Apple declined to comment GoMentum Station old Concord naval weapons station disused second world war-era facility 20 miles of paved highways city streets closed to the public guarded by the military largest secure test facility in the world testing validation commercialization connected vehicle CV autonomous vehicles AV technologies define the next generation transportation network infrastructure Mercedes-Benz Honda experiments self-driving cars barbed-wire fences security Apple hundreds of engineers working on automotive technologies anonymous office building Sunnyvale main campus in Cupertino project Apple self-driving car almost ready for the road Jack Hall program manager autonomous vehicles GoMentum Station Fearon Apple rumoured working on a self-driving electric car codenamed Project Titan first time its existence has been documented Apple senior vice-president Jeff Williams the ultimate mobile device Apple markets Google Uber tech companies robot cars Apple chief executive Tim Cook meetings car executives poached automotive experts head of Mercedes Benz’s Silicon Valley research arm Cook Fiat-Chrysler boss Sergio Marchionne BMW’s i3 electric car assembly line recruiting automotive experts Silicon Valley hiring engineers from Tesla Motors Mercedes-Benz power experts electric car battery maker A123 Systems electric motorbike Silicon Valley start-up Lit Motors build autonomous robotic paraglider Georgia Institute of Technology testing grounds layout photos Apple test vehicles realistic everyday situations Google Tesla Volkswagen Mercedes-Benz other carmakers issued permits California department of motor vehicles test self-driving cars state’s public roads disclosing technical and commercial details notoriously secretive Apple non-disclosure agreement with Apple Randy Iwasaki executive director Contra Costa Transportation Authority owner of GoMentum Station Apple’s obsession with secrecy engineers Apple’s Special Projects group documents Apple’s automotive team lab workshop spaces beefed-up security access card readers testing secure location trialling driverless cars Honda memorandum of understanding begin testing Japanese automaker self-driving version RLX saloon development engineers Tesla Motors armed soldiers refused high security /