Apple won’t be building its own self-driving car.
Now, according to five unnamed sources, the company, which sought partnerships with the luxury carmakers BMW and Mercedes-Benz to develop an all-electric self-driving car, 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. This project, in turn, is said to be behind schedule and consuming nearly all of the Apple car team’s attention,
Over its four year history, Apple’s self-driving car program is said to have hurt morale and led to hundreds of departures from its peak of more than 1,000 members two years ago. The sources added that the team was now mostly consumed with developing the self-driving shuttle but the project lacks a clear plan beyond the vans.
The project’s fits and starts are thought to have put Apple behind the eight ball in the developing self-driving car market. Waymo, the self-driving business spun out of Google, as well as start-ups and some carmakers have been testing various autonomous vehicles on public roads for years. By comparison, ride share company Uber on Wednesday said it was shutting down its self-driving operations in Arizona and laying off about 300 employees in the area, although several companyies have already gathered data on autonomous driving patterns to improve their technology.
Apple declined to comment.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.