Apple never officially confirmed that it’s building a self-driving car, but even so it seems that the launch of this “secret” project has been delayed by two years.
The Apple Car, also called “Project Titan”, is now expected to become available in 2021 instead of the original 2019 date, according to The Information. This isn’t too surprising, given that the exec in charge of the project left back in January.
The delay is the latest in the “will they or won’t they” guessing. First, nobody was even sure the thing even existed, but reports from a year ago seemed to confirm that Apple was at least meeting with the right people for the rumour to be a reality. A couple months later, we first heard the 2019 ship date, and speculation has been pretty strong ever since, from an analyst predicting the car could cost $US75,000 ($100,443) to Elon Musk throwing some shade by calling it a “missed opportunity”. (Musk himself has big plans for the auto industry, having just released his new “master plan“).
Apple’s car is probably still on the way, it’s just far less sure how soon it will be, or whether someone else will get there first.