The word on the street is that Apple is scaling back its automotive ambitions – the New York Times and others have suggested that the company may be planning to develop autonomy software in partnership with an existing automaker rather than build its own car.
However, Bloomberg now reports that automotive heavyweight Magna Steyr still has about a dozen engineers working on a car at Apple’s Sunnyvale facility. The anonymous source didn’t say exactly what the engineers are working on, but Magna specializes in production engineering and contract manufacturing, so Bloomberg speculates that the presence of the Austrians means that Apple is still planning to build a vehicle.
Apple’s Project Titan has seen some shakeups of late. The company brought in former hardware engineering chief Bob Mansfield to lead the project in July. The vehicle autonomy scene is heating up – Tesla is upgrading its system as Uber and others are already running pilots – so eyes are on Apple and rumors are rife.
Source: Bloomberg via AppleInsider