Apple Car Could Debut By 2024 With Radical Battery Tech

It is no secret that the tech giant Apple has been working on a car for years now, and the project is reportedly back on track.  According to a new Reuters report, the Apple car – known internally as Project Titan –could go into production by 2024, and is set to feature radical battery technology as well. The iPhone maker’s automotive efforts, known as Project Titan, have proceeded unevenly since 2014 when it first started to design its own vehicle from scratch. At one point, Apple drew back the effort to focus on software and reassessed its goals.Now Apple is back on track and on a mission to create a new electric vehicle with a new battery design that could “radically” reduce the cost of batteries and increase the vehicle’s range according to a source. Described as a unique ‘mono cell’, this new design is said to bulk up the individual cells, freeing up the room by eliminating pouches and modules that hold battery materials to pack in more active material inside the battery, providing a vehicle a potentially longer range. The report also mentions Apple is examining chemistry for the battery named LFP, or lithium iron phosphate, which is said to be inherently less likely to overheat, and could be a safer alternative to other lithium-ion batteries. As per the report, the source says Apple’s battery tech is “next level” and its impact on the world would be "like the first time you saw the iPhone."For its autonomous driving tech, Apple is said to have explored sourcing lidar sensors from outside partners. The report suggests the Apple car could feature multiple lidar sensors for scanning different distances, and that Apple may also considering using its own internally-developed lidar units. It remains unclear who would assemble an Apple-branded car, but sources have said they expect the company to rely on a manufacturing partner to build vehicles. And there is still a chance Apple will decide to reduce the scope of its efforts to an autonomous driving system that would be integrated with a car made by a traditional automaker.