While the concept of a full-blown Apple vehicle might have bit the dust last year, we knew it didn’t mean the company was ruling itself out of the self-driving car market completely. Instead, it pledged that it was going to be focusing energy on building autonomous software for existing carmakers. Earlier in 2017, Apple announced a partnership with rental car agency Hertz, who are providing Apple with a fleet of cars to test their self-driving vehicle tech with.
Now we’ve been treated to a sneak peek of what the self-driving cars, dubbed ‘Project Titan’, look like. In a video taken by MacCallister Higgins, co-founder of self-driving taxi startup Voyage, we can see a white Lexus RX450h kitted out with what seems to be a range of third-party hardware and sensors. It has radar units, six Velodyne-made LIDAR sensors, and a number of cameras.
Going to need more than 140 characters to go over 🍎’s Project Titan. I call it “The Thing” pic.twitter.com/sLDJd7iYSa
— MacCallister Higgins (@macjshiggins) October 17, 2017
It’s a pretty bulky looking addition to the roof of the car, which is at odds with the usual sleek and pristine style of design that Apple is famous for. Of course, this is just the equipment they are using for testing and development rather an Apple product meant for mass consumption, but it still looks kind of ridiculous.
The notoriously secretive company haven’t as yet revealed any real details as to what kind of autonomous systems or software it is developing, but with its track record for pushing the bleeding edge of technology and creating devices and software that are so influential, we can be sure to expect something special to be emerging behind the scenes.
Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
EV Obsession Daily!
Tesla Sales in 2023, 2024, and 2030
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.