Wild price of new Apple ‘iCar’
More details of Apple’s iCar have leaked, including its staggering price tag, as the release date of the new product looms.
Rumours are more fervent than ever that Apple will branch out from its usual product offering and release the first ever “iCar”, but its said the vehicle won’t come cheap.
Apple has spent the past decade skirting rumours of the iCar, but since Tesla’s explosion in popularity, its reported the tech giant is developing the product in earnest.
Even Elon Musk has confirmed Apple’s working on a vehicle is an open secret in the industry, telling the BBC in 2016: “It’s pretty hard to hide if you hire a thousand engineers to do it.”
Apple itself appeared to confirm the news that same year, telling US transport regulators it was “excited about the potential of automated systems in many areas, including transportation”.
The vehicle, unofficially dubbed the “iCar”, is reportedly known by the Apple engineers working on it as “Project Titan”.
Apple iCar features
Apple’s first ever vehicle is expected to run on its in-house operating system, iOS, which isn’t particularly surprising since the advent of Apple CarPlay.
That means the car will be intimately linked to the iPhone, likely with a built-in display on which users can play music, navigate maps and potentially even unlock and start their vehicle.
The iCar is expected to be a competitor to Tesla, meaning it’s expected to be electric. That also means it probably won’t be a sports car, but rather a cruiser or SUV.
Georgi Tedoradze, a Georgia-based industrial designer, released images of what he believes the Apple iCar may look like.
Initially, it was reported the iCar would be entirely autonomous — as in, without a steering wheel or pedals — and users could relax, watch TV or play games as the vehicle drove them around.
More recently, though, industry experts have said that technology isn’t yet feasible.
According to multiple sources, Apple is more likely to be aiming for a less ambitious model. A Bloomberg report, for instance, suggests the iCar will have both steering wheels and pedals and will be only semi-autonomous.
The same report suggests the vehicle will be autonomous on freeways, but will alert drivers to switch over to manual control if they reach city streets or inclement weather. The features will likely launch in North America first, before being improved and expanding over time.
Apple iCar release date
The reported release date of the highly anticipated vehicle has already been pushed back several times.
Most recently, it’s been reported Apple is gearing towards a launch date between 2025 and 2027.
But analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has a credible track record of predicting Apple products, recently said the tech giant will have to make some major acquisitions if it’s to release the iCar in 2025.
He said Apple will likely have to buy up technology from existing EV and autonomous car makers, tweeting last week: “If Apple doesn’t adopt an acquisition strategy to enter the automotive market, I doubt that the Apple Car can go into mass production within the next years.”
Apple iCar price
With all of its flashy features, it’s hard to imagine Apple’s iCar will come cheap.
Auto website Supercar Blondie recently forecast the vehicle will sit within the same price range as its main predicted competitors, Tesla’s Model X and Sony’s new Afeela EV.
That means its price will be around the $150,000 (US$100,000) mark.
Get in touch — chloe.whelan@news.com.au
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