A new name just showed up on California’s growing list of companies allowed to test autonomous vehicles in the state. Surprise surprise, it’s Apple.

Apple has been hush hush about their efforts to build an autonomous car, code named Project Titan. Previous leaks have suggested that the company has been working on Project Titan for a couple years, but has never formally declared it as a legitimate project. At this time, the project seems to be in flux. Reports have been pointing in the direction that Apple is no longer trying to develop a physical car rather they are focused on developing self-driving software that can be deployed with existing car manufacturers.  

Now Apple has a permit which makes it likely that they are ready or close to being ready for public trials of their software. According to Bloomberg, Apple will begin their trails “soon.” This makes things more interesting.

“Project Titan started in 2014 with upwards of 1,000 employees working on developing an electric autonomous vehicle. Leadership issues and internal fights caused Apple to shelve the project for the foreseeable future. Since then, Apple has laid off hundreds of employees who were working on Project Titan,” as stated by Mac Rumors.

However, the company is now looking to build up their work force again. Taking charge of the new vision of their self-driving car is Bob Mansfield. The goal of the new project is to develop an autonomous driving system, instead of creating a physical car. Apple may be able to partner with existing car manufactures like BMW and Mercedes Benz. Also, Apple will have the ability to integrate their self-driving car software with iOS.

Heading up the project are different teams that are working on different aspects of the software. In Canada, Apple has a team consisting of two dozen former BlackBerry QNX customers. This team is developing the foundation of the operating system. Then, there is a team developing software that consumer will interact with such as a heads-up-display and autonomous driving capabilities.   

This is a new journey for Apple so it will be interesting to see how they take the first step. It seems like the company is laying the groundwork for future progress. Now that the company has obtained a permit, be on the lookout for Apple autonomous cars on the road.