Now Apple Wants To Make Cars With Plans For A 2019 Launch

Apple is reportedly surging forward with its desire to build an electric car, according to The Wall Street Journal, with hopes of a 2019 release.

Quoting people who are apparently familiar with the matter, the WSJ says the tech giant has given permission for the team behind it to triple the team, already at 600.

There’s speculation the cars could eventually be driverless, however those in the know say the first car won’t be fully driverless.

While an Apple spokesperson declined to comment on the story for the WSJ, the publication speculated the 2019 date is ambitious, given the company has no prior experience in developing cars. However, the 2019 date refers to the “ship date” of the Apple Car, which doesn’t necessarily mean it will be in market for consumers to purchase.

Apple declined to comment to B&T.

Apple is the latest tech behemoth to invest in a vehicular project.

Google recently paraded its creation of its self-driving cars, with the latest models cruising around the company’s California office.

While Google had unveiled the new automobile a while ago, the cruise in June was the first time the pod-like cars were allowed on public roads.

At the time, director of the self-driving car, Chris Urmson, said on the Google blog: “We’ve been running the vehicles through rigorous testing at our test facilities, and ensuring our software and sensors work as they’re supposed to on this new vehicle. The new prototypes will drive with the same software that our existing fleet of self-driving Lexus RX450h SUVs uses.

“That fleet has logged nearly a million autonomous miles on the roads since we started the project, and recently has been self-driving about 10,000 miles a week.

“We’re looking forward to learning how the community perceives and interacts with the vehicles, and to uncovering challenges that are unique to a fully self-driving vehicle—e.g., where it should stop if it can’t stop at its exact destination due to construction or congestion. In the coming years, we’d like to run small pilot programs with our prototypes to learn what people would like to do with vehicles like this.”

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