Apple has yet to confirm the existence of the Apple Car, but it appears this thing hit another snag on the way to its big reveal.
The Apple Car won’t make its debut until 2028, according to a report from Bloomberg Tuesday. Planning for the Apple Car, codenamed Project Titan, started in 2014 with a possible release happening in 2025. Apple initially wanted its car to be a completely driverless EV, but it has since downgraded the vehicle to include some self-driving features.
Apple didn’t immediately reply to a request for confirmation of this delay or if the Apple Car is even real.
The Apple Car saga has been intriguing for such a secret project. In 2021, progress on the vehicle reportedly hit multiple snags that included the departure of multiple managers from the project and failed talks with automakers Kia and Hyundai to collaborate on the car. Another big setback for Apple came last year when the U.S. Department of Justice charged a former Apple software engineer for allegedly stealing autonomous driving technology from a Chinese company.
That Apple has seemingly abandoned rumored fully autonomous features should not come as much of a surprise these days. The robo-taxi company Cruise was in the spotlight late last year after a driverless vehicle dragged a pedestrian. This led to an investigation, a recall of the company’s fleet of driverless vehicles, and the ousting of the co-founders.
That still hasn’t stopped states from bending over backward to keep automakers happy by not handing out traffic tickets to driverless cars. In fact, testing for Waymo’s autonomous vehicles that can travel up to 70 mph will begin this month on Arizona highways.