According to media reports, Apple's car project was previously said to be in a stagnant state. After cutting the team of the autonomous driving car project in early 2023, Apple has now rehired testing personnel.
In 2023, Apple's autonomous driving car testing team reached its largest size ever, with over 200 testers. However, Apple later significantly reduced the number of team members.
Now, Apple's autonomous driving car project appears to have new progress, with the addition of new test drivers while maintaining the same number of vehicles involved in testing. According to foreign media reports, Apple's autonomous driving car project currently has 162 test drivers and 68 autonomous driving cars.
Reports in 2022 suggested that the release date for Apple's car might be in 2026. However, in the fall of 2023, Ming-Chi Kuo stated that Apple's autonomous driving project had stalled, with no definite release date. At that time, Ming-Chi Kuo mentioned that the development of Apple's car was at a standstill, and no release date had been announced.
Additionally, some media reports suggested that Apple's car might be launched in 2026, priced below $100,000, equipped with custom chips, and not featuring full autonomous driving at the time of release.
There were also reports suggesting that Apple was considering production partnerships with car manufacturers like Hyundai and BMW. However, Apple might adopt different strategies, such as collaboration with other companies like Foxconn. Some foreign media sources believed that Apple did not intend to have other companies mass-produce Apple cars.
Insiders at that time also mentioned that Apple's car might require an iPhone for use, as it might not come with traditional car keys and would need Apple CarKey for access. Some sources also indicated that Apple planned to incorporate a significant amount of titanium components into the Apple car.
