There is no doubt that Apple has a team working on a car-related project, but as with many of Apple's projects, the details are scarce. Here we have gathered everything there is to know about Apple's car project - whether it's a self-driving car, or just an automated driving software system. Read on to find out about what has been unofficially-dubbed the iCar, and what's going on behind the steering wheel at Apple.

It's clear that Apple has a number of projects going on behind the scenes, and at least one of them involves cars. The company - just like many other tech companies - is looking at how technology will find its way into the cars of the future. That doesn't necessarily mean that Apple is building an actual car, but it does appear that the company is interested in the technology behind self-driving cars and other exciting developments in that space. (And one analyst still thinks Apple is likely to make the cars itself within the next few years.)

The iCar project has been going on behind the scenes at Apple for a long time. Back in February 2015, there were murmurs that Apple was working on a car that would "give Tesla a run for its money" after Business Insider spoke to an Apple employee with knowledge of the subject. This, coupled with sightings of cars registered to Apple clad with sensors/cameras (which were later debunked), got everyone talking about the prospects of an Apple Car, or iCar.

The iCar project is codenamed 'Titan', according to The Wall Street Journal, which originally stated there were "several hundred" Apple employees working on the project.

A June 2017 Bloomberg interview with CEO Tim Cook suggested that Apple is working on an autonomous driving platform. This was supported in November 2017, when two Apple computer scientists published research proposing a 3D detection system called VoxelNet, which they said would work effectively at helping autonomous cars avoid collisions with pedestrians and cyclists.

Then in May 2018, it emerged that Apple and VW are to work together - not on a driverless car for sale to the public, but on a driverless vehicle to shuttle its employees to and from work. Is this the extent of Apple's autonomous vehicle ambition?

In July 2019, a high profile case saw the FBI catch an ex-Apple employee and charge them with stealing trade secrets from the company to take to a Chinese car startup. The case makes it clear that the company has a lot invested in the area, and there's more information on that below.

On the other hand, a January 2019 CNBC report claims that 200 employees in Apple's autonomous systems division were laid off at the end of January, suggesting that the iCar project may have been canned - we'll go into that in more detail too.

Whatever the end product, Apple has definitely been working on developing something car-related, whether it's an autonomous driving system, an Apple Car or simply an in-car entertainment system - although the company will never admit what. We'll let you read all the evidence below and decide for yourselves.

When will the Apple iCar launch?

Of course, until we see Tim Cook on stage announcing the iCar, no one knows when or if any car-related software or hardware will ever be released by Apple. However, outspoken Apple analyst and lover of Apple Television rumours, Gene Munster set on 2020 as a launch date for an Apple Car. He reportedly told clients in a note back in February 2015 that we shouldn't expect the iCar for at least five years. Which brings us to 2020 - next year!

Automakers usually spend between five and seven years developing a car, which shows Apple's aggressive and demanding goals for its team. Is Apple gearing up for a battle against GM, Tesla and others?

It's unlikely we think, but back in 2015, the WSJ was reporting that Apple had revised its original plan of a 2020 announcement and was instead aiming for a 2019 announcement.

That report claimed that Apple has designated the iCar internally as a "committed project" and was aiming for a 2019 release date after spending more than a year looking into the feasibility of an Apple-branded car. 

Further reports suggest a 2021 launch for the autonomous vehicle project.

Guggenheim analyst Robert Cirha, in a research memo sent out to clients and seen by AppleInsider in March 2018, argued that Apple will "get all-in or all-out [of self-driving cars] over the next 2 years", and adds that his firm is "thinking all-in, given the draw of technology disruption and sheer size of [the potential market]".

Apple's secret car project cancelled?

If you were hoping for an Apple Car at some point in the future you may be disappointed. The company has apparently laid off 200 staff who’ve been working on the project (this isn’t the first time layoffs have happened in this department, there were also layoffs back in 2016).

According to CNBC, 200 employees in the division were laid off at the end of January.

CNBC had the news confirmed by an Apple spokesperson and some “people familiar with the group” who said that some of the autonomous systems team would be “moved to projects in other parts of the company, where they will support machine learning and other initiatives”.

What Tim Cook says about the Apple Car

Apple CEO Tim Cook also sat down with Bloomberg in June 2017 to discuss autonomous driving.

Talking about the project, Cook says that Apple is "focusing on autonomous systems" and that "it's a core technology that we view as very important. We sort of see it as the mother of all AI projects. It's probably one of the most difficult AI projects to actually work on".

Of course, Cook wouldn't confirm or deny whether Apple is working on producing an iCar, driverless or otherwise, or whether the technology will be used by existing car manufacturers. "We'll see where it takes us. We're not really saying from a product point of view what we will do."

According to Cook, Apple is currently focusing on everything it takes to 'view' the world around the car and understanding what it means in the context of navigation and safety.

While this isn't confirmation that Apple is working on a car to utilise the self-driving technology, it's not a huge leap to make either.

Apple's Tim Cook also discussed the possibility of an Apple Car during an interview with Fortune in February 2016. Cook said: "We don't have to spend large amounts to explore".

Apparently, Apple becomes "committed" to a project once the company begins spending huge amounts of money on tools, company acquisitions and other processes (as rumours suggest the company has), although hiring experts don't seem to count. "We explore things with teams of people. And that's a part of being curious," Cook said.

It wasn't the last that Cook had to say about the iCar, either. Only days after speaking to Fortune, Cook teased attendees at an Apple shareholder meeting about future possibilities. "Do you remember when you were a kid, and Christmas Eve... it was so exciting," Cook reportedly said. "You weren't sure what was going to be downstairs. Well, it's going to be Christmas Eve for a while." We'll obviously be waiting some time for an Apple-branded car, but the latest comments from the Apple CEO will definitely add fuel to the fire.

During Apple's Q4 2016 financial results, Apple CEO Tim Cook answered a flurry of questions regarding Apple Pay, Siri and most importantly, the Apple Car. While the CEO neither confirmed or denied the existence of Apple's rumoured electric car, he said that Apple "always looks for ways that we can improve the experience and the customers' experience on different sets of products".

"And we are always looking at new things, and the car space in general is an area that it's clear that there is a lot of technologies that will either become available or will be able to revolutionise the car experience." he continued. "And so it's interesting from that point of view, but nothing to, certainly nothing to announce today."

As usual, Cook is speaking in riddles, but if you read between the lines, it does hint that Apple may have something to announce somewhere down the line.

What analysts think about Apple's car plans

Gene Munster believes that Apple is working on a car-related project and expects a 2020 launch date. He reportedly told clients in a note back in February 2015 that we shouldn't expect the iCar for at least five years.

Guggenheim analyst Robert Cihra also believes that Apple is working in a self-driving car. He told investors in June 2018 that he wanted to “reiterate our expectation that it ultimately launches a self-driving car, irrespective of contrary news flow and even its own hesitations to date.”

Cihra doesn’t think Apple would be content to supply the technology to other companies - he thinks Apple is more likely to make the car itself, giving it more control over design and manufacturing, wrote The Mac Observer back in June 2018. Cihra said: “Given the market’s sheer size and parallels to Apple’s historical MO, we remain convinced that it will inevitably be drawn into launching its own car”.

Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi wrote in July 2018 that “Apple might be spending $500 million to $1 billion of its $12.7 billion RD spend on autonomous driving alone,” according to a Cult Of Mac report.

Evidence that Apple is working on an automated car

Here is where we list some of the most prominent rumours and evidence that suggests Apple is making a car.

Patent details unique in-car lighting system

A patent, first picked up by Apple Insider, showcases a unique in-car lighting system that could provide illuminated car doors and seats that change contextually. The patent is titled "Lighting systems of vehicle seats" which is pretty straightforward. The underlying tech, on the other hand, is a little more complex. 

Per the patent, Apple envisions a lighting system that utilises fibre-connected LEDs and OLEDs within a structure, be it a car door or even a car seat, complete with special lighting ducts to transport the light around the car while concealing the source.

When combined with embedded sensors, also mentioned in the patent, the end result is a door that looks like a door - with no noticeable displays - that's able to display buttons and or icons when required.  This could, for example, show passengers where the various levers are to adjust the seat position, or even advise passengers to put their seatbelt on when the vehicle is in motion. 

It certainly sounds cool, but as with most patents, this isn't confirmation that Apple will include the tech if/when it releases its own branded car. Like most tech companies, Apple files a lot of future-facing tech patents, but this is usually more representative in the interest of the company's RD teams than something that'll appear on a device in the near future. 

Ex-Apple employee charged with stealing car-related secrets from the company

An Apple engineer who was working on Apple’s autonomous car project allegedly stole trade secrets for a Chinese car startup, and has been charged by the FBI.

Xiaolang Zhang worked at Apple from December 2015 until May 2018. He was charged with stealing trade secrets in July 2018.

Apple issued a statement to The Verge in which it stated: “Apple takes confidentiality and the protection of our intellectual property very seriously. We’re working with authorities on this matter and will do everything possible to make sure this individual and any other individuals involved are held accountable for their actions.”

Apple’s security team discovered that Zhang was responsible for a number of “bulk searches and targeted downloading copious pages of information” from a confidential database. CCTV forage of him leaving Apple’s autonomous vehicle lab (at a time he was supposed to be on leave) carrying a “computer keyboard, some cables, and a large box,” was also cited.

The case has made it clear not only that the car project is ongoing, but also that a lot of people are involved with the project. “Approximately 5,000 of Apple’s over 135,000 full-time employees are disclosed on the Project,” according to FBI documents.

Apple hiring car industry veterans and specialists

Perhaps the clearest sign of Apple's interest in the car industry is the number of hires it's made from that field over the years.

In December 2018, the company hired Andrew Kim - a senior designer at Tesla. He has also worked at Microsoft on the design of Windows 10 UI the HoloLens and Xbox One S.

Doug Field, who was previously VP of Mac hardware, then moved to Tesla to become the chief vehicle engineer, returned to Apple in August 2018.

According to the Wall Street Journal, in July 2015, Tim Cook hired Doug Betts, a veteran of the car industry. Doug Betts has 25 years of experience working for Nissan and Toyota; from 2007 until last year, he was senior vice-president of Global Quality at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.

The automobile expert has changed his LinkedIn profile. He describes his current job as "operation-Apple Inc.", which could be interpreted as evidence to back up the WSJ report. On the other hand, this cryptic statement could mean a lot of things.

This wasn't the first car-related hire. Since February 2015, Apple seems to have been quietly cherry-picking automobile industry experts - such as Paul Furgale, the Swiss researcher who led the V-Charge project developing self-parking cars.

In February 2015, a Business Insider source claimed that Tesla employees were "jumping ship" to go and work at Apple. Evidence via LinkedIn supports this claim, with 50 profiles of current Apple employees that have an engineering history at Tesla, mainly through internships. Apple Insider reported that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that Apple is trying very hard to get Tesla engineers, offering them a $250k signing bonus and 60 percent pay increase.

Also in February 2015, The Korea Times reported that Apple was luring Samsung's tech experts away, namely experts in battery technology; perhaps to work on batteries for the iPhone, but also, reports suggest to work on a battery-powered electric car. "Some of our personnel have been hired by Apple. They now work at Apple's headquarters in San Jose, Calif.," claimed one anonymous Samsung official, stating that Apple offers competitive benefits and large annual paychecks.

A lawsuit that was filed in February 2015 claimed that Apple engaged in an "aggressive campaign" to poach engineers from electric car battery maker A123 Systems.

The Register reported in June 2015 that Apple was reassigning workers to its car project at such a fast pace that other department leaders are beginning to complain about the loss of talent.

However, by May 2018, according to people familiar with the project who spoke to a New York Times reporter, the “project has suffered from repeated changes in direction that have hurt morale and led to hundreds of departures from its peak of more than 1,000 members two years ago.”

That doesn't mean that the project is over by any means though.

Doug Field, who left Apple in 2013 to join Tesla, has now returned to Apple to work with the Project Titan car team. Field led the development of Tesla’s vehicles during his time at the company.

Project Titan is being run by Bob Mansfield, who had previously retired from Apple but returned to the company in 2016 to work on the car project.

Mark Rober - who has a science-related YouTube channel with 3.4 million subscribers - is also working with Apple on the self-driving car project, according to a Variety report - that site had spotted Rober’s names on a couple of Apple VR-related patent applications that relate to self-driving cars.

Apple's self-driving fleet

Apple has a test fleet of 62 self-driving vehicles and 87 drivers, according to a macReports report from May 2018.

The company has been testing its autonomous cars in California since at April 2017 when it received its first permits to test there and has been steadily up-scaling the tests since launch. It's reported that Apple is gathering data for autonomous vehicle software rather than its own line of vehicles, but would the company put that many vehicles on the street if it was only working on software? 

Apple and Volkswagen

Apple’s driverless cars are a little closer to becoming a reality - but not in a way that we’ll be able to buy one.

Apple is teaming up with Volkswagen to create a driverless vehicle to shuttle its employees to and from work.

A New York Times report from May 2018 claims “Apple has signed a deal with Volkswagen to turn some of the carmaker’s new T6 Transporter vans into Apple’s self-driving shuttles for employees.”

However, according to people familiar with the project, things are “behind schedule and consuming nearly all of the Apple car team’s attention”.

It would seem VW wasn't Apple's first choice for a partner. Apple had, apparently, tried to strike deals with BMW and Mercedes-Benz in the past, "to develop an all-electric self-driving vehicle,” according to NY Times sources.

Apple files patent for climate control in vehicles

This could be evidence of an iCar in the works, or simply a plan for software controls accessed via CarPlay or a future in-car interface; or it could be neither, since much patent activity by Apple and other companies is speculative and may never lead anywhere. But Apple's filing of a patent (which came to light in April 2018) for climate control in vehicles certainly indicates (once again) that cars are in the company's thoughts.

The patent, number 2018001734, involves the maintenance of "optimal comfort conditions".

"The climate control system controls various vehicle components to control climate conditions, including window assemblies, sunroof assemblies, etc," writes AppleWorld. "It determines optimal comfort conditions that optimise the perceived temperature of various occupant body parts and maintain various climate characteristics within one or more sets of thresholds."

Apple exec outlines self-driving car projects

Ruslan Salakhutdinov, Apple's director of artificial intelligence research, attended the NIPS conference in December 2017 and spoke at length about several projects the company has been working on. One has been disclosed before (as outlined below) but several were news to the Apple-following public.

Conference visitors heard about software that can identify pedestrians from camera images even if the camera is splashed with water and the pedestrian obscured by a parked car, and Apple has been collecting data for detailed digital maps of car-relevant features such as lights and road markings.

Wired has a full write-up of the talk.

Apple scientists publish research on self-driving cars

Yin Zhou and Oncel Tuzel, a pair of computer scientists who work for Apple,  published research in November 2018, into methods that could be used by automated cars to avoid collisions with pedestrians and cyclists.

The research, posted to the online journal arXiv.org, proposes a software system called VoxelNet, "a generic 3D detection network that unifies feature extraction and bounding box prediction into a single stage, end-to-end trainable deep network". The system has seen promising results, the scientists report, but it has been tested in simulations only, rather than on the road.

The publication offer hints that Apple may be close to an announcement related to autonomous vehicles, although it is understood that the company is easing up on the secrecy it has traditionally imposed on its researchers - something that has made it increasingly difficult to hire the leading figures in AI, who are used to a policy of academic openness.

Apple pens letter to US transport regulators about self-driving car rules

While many had believed that Apple was stepping away from the autonomous car project, a letter penned to US transport regulators by Apple's director of product integrity Steve Kenner may suggest otherwise. Apple has apparently said that it was "excited about the potential of automated systems in many areas, including transportation" and that there were "significant societal benefits of automated vehicles" to be realised.

An Apple spokesman has confirmed that the letter (in December 2016) to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) was prompted by its "heavy investment in machine learning and autonomous systems" and that it wanted to help define best practises in the industry going forward.

The letter urges regulators to not introduce too many rules regarding the testing of self-driving cars, claiming that "established manufacturers and new entrants should be treated equally". Kenner also suggests that companies should share data from crashes and near-misses to build a more comprehensive picture than would be possible by one company alone, helping to improve the systems.

Of course, with Apple being so focused on user privacy, it'd be out of character not to mention it in the letter. Kenner notes that an individual's privacy should not be compromised by the sharing of data, and that regulators "address privacy challenges associated with the collection, use, and sharing of automated vehicle data".

Apple awarded self-driving car permit in California

Following Apple's letter to the NHTSA in late 2016, Apple has been awarded a permit that'll let the company test autonomous vehicles on public roads in California.

According to the Wall Street Journal in April 2017, the permit lets Apple retrofit three 2015 Lexus SUVs with all the technology required for autonomous driving. The permit also allows for six people to sit in the cars during testing and can take over driving if/when necessary.

This suggests that Apple has been conducting successful tests on closed tracks and wants to really push the system by testing it on public roads where there are more variables for the autonomous driving system to deal with.

Is Apple still developing a self-driving iCar, or is it testing out autonomous technology for other manufacturers to use? Both options are possible, but it'll be a while before we find out for sure

'Engine noises' heard late at night at Apple Car campus

If Apple isn't developing a car, this rumour will be pretty hard to explain: AppleInsider reported in February 2016 that someone who lives near Apple's mysterious campus in Sunnyvale, Calfornia (believed to be where Apple is developing its car) complained about "motor noises" coming from the facility at night.

"[Do] there have to [be] motor noises at 11:00 p.m. at night like last night? Even with the windows closed I could still hear it," the resident reportedly remarked.

However, the resident may be mistaken - construction sounds sound similar to the revving of an engine, especially at a distance. Last year, Sunnyvale issued permits to Apple allowing the company to build a "windowless repair garage" at one of the buildings Apple operates at, so it's possible that is what was heard - although why the construction would take place at night is a mystery.

It's also worth noting that if Apple is building a prototype car at the facility, the noises could be the sound of the lathes and mills required to shape the metal, a notoriously noisy process.

Apple buys car-related domain names

As first reported by MacRumours in January 2016, it appears that Apple has bought a number of car-related domain names including apple.car, apple.cars and apple.auto. The purchases took place in December 2015 and were brought to light via Whois, a service that finds information regarding specific domain names and IP addresses.

Whois records were updated on January 8 2016 to show that Apple had registered the domains through registrar MarkMonitor Inc, although it's worth noting that none of the registered domains are currently active.

While this may seem like confirmation that Apple is working on an Apple Car, it may not be the case; Apple could be buying the domains for use with Apple's in-car system, CarPlay. It could also be to stop potential scammers looking to make money from people in light of the recent Apple Car rumours. Although with this being said, Apple bought iCloud.com months before its announcement and that was also picked up by MacRumours.

Apple 'testing a self-driving car at a War World II naval base'

Project Titan is on its way, at least according to an August 2015 report in The Guardian.

The newspaper reported that Apple has already developed its self-driving car, and now it just needs to be tested.

Unlike many carmakers - such as Google and Tesla - that are testing their self-driving vehicles on public roads, Apple wants to keep a low profile. That means the company needs some barricaded doors behind which it can test its secretive projects.

Apparently Apple has found the perfect top-secret testing base. Back in May 2016, according to the Guardian, Apple's engineers met officials from GoMentum Station, a War World II-epoch disused naval base near San Francisco.

The base reportedly hosts 20 miles of everyday public transport scenarios, from highways to cattle grids; its 24-hour surveillance by armed soldiers prevents the public from nosing around the facility. According to GoMentum officials, the base is "the largest secure test facility in the world".

However, it's worth mentioning that the leaked report obtained by the Guardian consists of a filed public requests record about the meeting between Apple's team and GoMentum officials.

There is no mention of an Apple iCar, and the most revealing clue comes from Apple engineer Frank Fearon, who said: "We would … like to get an understanding of timing and availability for the space, and how we would need to coordinate with other parties who would be using [GoMentum]."

What will the Apple Car feature?

While it's tough at this stage to pinpoint key features of Apple's upcoming vehicle, a report from Business Insider in September 2017 gave us a glimpse of what employees working on the project wanted the car to offer.

Per the report, Apple engineers contemplated featuring:

• Automatic doors that open and close silently
• An interior without a steering wheel or pedals (which would mean the car would have to be fully autonomous)
• Virtual- or augmented reality built into interior displays for entertainment purposes
• Spherical wheels that would allow the car to drive sideways
• Development of a more aesthetically pleasing driving system to replace the clunky lidar system used by other companies developing autonomous cars

Of course, the project has allegedly changed course since then so these features may not materialise for quite some time, but it's not to say that Apple won't go on to develop a car once it perfects the 'CarOS' system itself.

Apple's in-car entertainment system plans

While many have suggested that Apple is working on an autonomous car (or a system to sell to other manufacturers), a report from Business Insider and comments from analyst Steven Milunovich suggest that something else could be in store for motoring fans.

BI recently discovered a secret Apple office in Berlin that is apparently devoted to transportation using engineers hired from car companies. But what if the company is working on more than just a car - what if it was developing an in-car entertainment system?

USB analyst Steven Milunovich discussed Project Titan with Horace Dediu and Neil Cybart and raised three issues:

• Transportation is bigger than IT and healthcare, two industries Apple is already deep in.
• Car ownership may plummet with autonomous driving.
• The company is building expertise in core sensor, driving and mapping technologies.

The most logical outcome? Project Titan "is likely to be a transportation platform - not a car, but the entire experience", Milunovich remarked.

It's an interesting idea; if cars in the future can drive themselves, what will the occupants be doing? It's likely that passengers will require some form of entertainment, communications and apps to keep them occupied - something Apple provides with its other devices.

With all that on offer, the car will also require Wi-Fi, broadband connectivity, navigation information and its own operating system - all of which the company offers.

Combine that with rumours of an upcoming Siri-enabled smart speaker to rival Amazon's hugely popular Alexa-powered Echo. It's not hard to imagine a future where Siri controls and operates your car, providing you with an iOS-like user interface to interact with.

Just an employee shuttle

Or Apple might just be building its own employee shuttle with no desire to turn that into a consumer project.

As mentioned earlier, a New York Times report from May 2018 claimed “Apple has signed a deal with Volkswagen to turn some of the carmaker’s new T6 Transporter vans into Apple’s self-driving shuttles for employees.”

It seems that Apple's plans to develop an all-electric self-driving vehicle with Mercedes Benz and BMW, have fallen through, according to that report.

What is Apple's competition doing?

Apple isn't the only company interested in cars...

Google/Alphabet Inc

Google's project is codenamed Waymo. The company says that it is "building the word's most experienced driver" on a dedicated website here.

According to a Business Insider source in August 2017, the development of Apple's autonomous driving technology is at the same stage as Google was three years ago. The source is said to be familiar with the technology of several autonomous car projects, and has seen Apple's car technology first-hand.

The source claims that "Apple is just trying to play catch up" despite its initial strides in self-driving technology, suggesting that Apple's car plans may not go as planned.

What will the Apple iCar look like?

If Apple does decide to develop a car to work with its autonomous driving system, will it have a similar look to Google's driverless pod-style cars? The answer is that no one knows for sure.

Apple goes to extreme lengths to protect the details of its products before release and we expect nothing different from the iCar. It'd be a cold day in hell before Apple drives its finished product around before the announcement!

Still, people often describe Apple products as beautiful - and we think that Apple will launch a car that people will fall in love with... if indeed it does launch a car.

Remember the car that Apple drove around back in 2015 that everyone suggested was autonomous, but was actually used to 'improve Apple Maps'? It has been sighted once again, although with some notable differences.

The video shared on Twitter by @macjshiggins provides an up-close look at Apple's hardware atop a Lexus SUV. It may be a relatively short video, but it gives us a glimpse at what the company is working on.