Opinion
While we may never see what Apple’s rumoured car could have looked like, Mat Gallagher believes this could be best for CarPlay
It seems that Apple has finally pulled the plug on its plans to create an electric car. The project has been rumoured to have been in the making for years, though not even a prototype has ever been officially released.
Building cars is hard, even when you’re the biggest tech company in the world. Apple knew that if it was going to come out with an electric car it had to be the best. The best looking, the most advanced specifications and the best performance. Which, in all, is an impossible task.
Anything less than amazing would have seen the product panned by car enthusiasts and Apple fans alike. It would have been compared against a market that already has some pretty special cars in it. Would it offer more tech than a Tesla 3? Could it outperform a Porsche Taycan GT? Is it as modern as a Rivian? At one time designs were rumoured to look more like a VW Transporter – before the ID.Buzz.
Arguably, it wouldn’t have taken much to compete with the CyberTruck in terms of design, but that’s another story. Creating a whole new look isn’t easy, especially when aerodynamics is so important to ensure that battery power translates into range. The new additions from the likes of Zeekr, BYD and Xiaomi often just look a little too familiar.
Competing on this level meant that the project continued in secret. Recently we heard that it would not have the fully autonomous driving that was originally touted. It was expected that the Apple Car would opt for Level 5 autonomy, which involves the driver not even needing to have a steering wheel. Then Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that the whole thing had been canned – just days before the shareholder meeting.
Apple CarPlay beats most proprietary car infotainment offerings hands down
I’ve been excited about the concept of an Apple car since I first heard the rumblings of its incep
