As reported by CleanTechnica, the total number of electric vehicles globally has reached 740,000 units. In addition to the demand, the site also reported that there have been more than 320,000 new electric vehicle registrations in the year 2014.
While traditional car manufacturers are focused on producing more cost-effective and environment-friendly vehicles, tech companies are thinking of going one step ahead by significantly investing in making the self-driving car a reality. Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL), the search giant is also working on a project called “Google Self-Driving cars”, where it’s working to enable self-sufficient cars that will negate the need for a driver.
On the other hand, there are rumors, which say that the Cupertino-based tech giant, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), is also putting things in place to enter the Electric car market. Carwow has shown some concept images of the rumored Apple Car, resembling Tesla Motor’s Model X with some changes. However, there has been no official statement from Apple about the Apple Car till date.
“I don’t know if Apple’s doing that, or if they’re just working on their CarPlay apps for the dashboard of your car, but it seems like they might be hiring a lot of people who could really build a vehicle,” Steve Wozniak told to AFR.
Can the Apple iCar Beat the existing giants – Tesla and Google?
The rumored Apple Car might also be called “iCar” but the probability of it being called iCar is minuscule as Apple named its smart payment method “Apple Pay” and not “iPay”.
There are a lot of rumors about the Apple car about the “Self Driven Functionality”. The Wall Street Journal says, “No” and Reuters says “Yes”. The Verge concluded that neither WSJ is wrong nor Reuters, in its blog post. In the end, it was concluded that the “Self-Driven Functionality” may be a part of Apple’s future plan, as the product is years away from us as of now.
Even if Apple is planning for the self-driven cars as version one, and also for future Apple car versions, it has to start working on it to compete against the existing giants – Tesla and Google, who are already working on the project for a long time. Apple is very novel to the Car market. Being a newbie in this field, the company has to clear a lot of hurdles to remain competitive in the market.
The search giant, Google, has already been working on the “Google Self-Driving Cars” project for a long time now. The company began working on the project in the year 2010 and after going through a lot of changes, it still needs 5 more years to churn out a fully-functional self-driven car on the roads after solving all the challenges, including clearance from Road Safety Authority.
On the other hand, Tesla, the Premium Electric Vehicles manufacturer is working on Tesla Model X, which, it says, will be a Self-Driven car. In fact, Tesla has already started taking preorders of this Car, with an estimated delivery date of sometime in 2016.
Both Google and Tesla have increased the heat in the Electric Car market. While Apple has not yet joined the league, Tesla is getting ready to deliver the product. On the other hand, Google is already ready with the product but with some issues, which might get solved soon.
It took almost 5 years for Google to reach this level and will take another 5 years to have the product completely ready for the market. At the end of this decade, by which Apple is expected to have its proposed vehicle ready for launch, this autonomous technology will have become more advanced. This brings us to the conclusion that it will be very difficult for the Cupertino giant to out beat existing rulers, Tesla and Google unless Apple thinks much ahead of the curve – something that the company is known for a long.
