Apple Car may be coming much, much later than we hoped

There's no other non-existing product we've heard more rumors about than the Apple Car.

In 2016, following two years of vaporous reports, we heard that the fabled vehicle was being built in Germany, with a potential launch date in 2019 at the earliest. In 2017, all the signs pointed to the project being abandoned. In 2018, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said Apple plans to launch the Apple Car between 2023 and 2025. In 2019, Apple laid off 200 employees from its autonomous vehicle group, once again indicating that the mythical vehicle will not see the light of day any time soon. There were many more reports like these over the years, but the pattern was obvious: Apple probably is working on something, but it keeps being postponed into the indefinite future.

The latest report on the Apple Car, coming from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, has both bad and good news for anyone wishing for a people mover with an Apple logo.

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According to the report, Apple has once again grown serious about building the Apple Car, with project head Kevin Lynch, CEO Tim Cook, and Apple's board discussing it in a series of meetings. The outcome of those meetings was a strategy to build an electric vehicle with Level 2+ autonomy (roughly on par with Tesla's Autopilot right now), and launch it in 2028 at the earliest.

There are two main takeaways from the report. One is that the car doesn't sound all that futuristic; the report does say that the company hopes to upgrade it to Level 4 autonomy (nearly fully autonomous driving) sometime after launch, but other than that, it sounds like a pretty regular electric car. Earlier rumors suggested a fully autonomous vehicle that might not even have a steering wheel. As Gurman puts it, Apple hopes "to make the car stand out with a sleek design, safety systems and unique user interface."

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The other important tidbit is the launch date, which is four years in the future at the earliest. A lot can happen between now and then; for example, Apple rival Xiaomi recently launched an EV which might be in its second or third iteration by 2028. However, judging by this latest report, at least it seems that this time there will be no more delays: Either the car happens in 2028, or the company will scrap it altogether.

The report also mentions the potential price range for the Apple Car, and it's an eye-watering $100,000. Start saving now, maybe.