What Will The Apple Car Look Like?

Just when you thought Apple had devoted all of its R&D capabilities to coming up with $550 headphones, a report comes out indicating that innovation may not be dead. According to Reuters, Apple still plans on making an Apple Car. That’s right, an actual physical car. After focusing on software for years, Apple’s muckety-mucks presumably decided they were due for another winner.

New Apple AirPods Max – Space Gray

So what will the Apple Car look like? TBD. Will it be self-driving? Unclear. There is still so much up in the air right now, and it is not altogether clear that Apple itself has the answers. With this month’s news that Uber was abandoning its own self-driving car ambitions, the future of that technology seemed in doubt. But since Google’s spinoff Waymo is progressing apace, Apple did not want to be left in the dust.

The Reuters report has precious little details about the Apple Car, with the most interesting tidbit being that the company plans to produce these cars by 2024. That timeline seems both ambitious, considering no one knew they were even still working on them, as well as rather far off into the future. If you think back to four years ago, people thought that we’d have whole fleets of self-driving taxis by now.

Reuters indicates that Apple is likely to rely on a current manufacturing partner to actually produce these cars, which you’d think would have some implication on the ultimate design. Buckle up, because we could be in for one of these power adapter blocks on wheels:

Apple 12W USB Power Adapter — $19.99

Of course, you’d hope they’d be somewhat sleeker than that. The new iPad Pro might be a better target:

New Apple iPad Pro (11-inch, Wi-Fi, 128GB) – Silver (2nd Generation) — $794

Supposedly, Apple Cars will be using a “monocell” battery, allowing them to beat the market’s other electric vehicles on price. I’ll believe it when I see it. If we have learned anything from Apple over the past decade-plus, it is that they will release an overly expensive product, scads of people will kvetch about the price only to end up buying it. Apple has a fix on our culture that way. I should know: I am currently typing this on a Macbook Pro, while I have Airpod Pros in my ears and both an iPhone XR and an old iPad on my desk. Who knows, maybe I will even get an Apple Car one day.