Tim Cook confirms Apple working on autonomous driving software

Project Titan is officially about autonomous driving software, according to Apple CEO Tim Cook in an interview with Bloomberg Television at the Worldwide Developers Conference.

The video was posted today, marking the company’s public admission regarding true purpose of the secretive project. Laying out exactly what Apple is up to in the automotive market, Cook said their current efforts are concentrated on self-driving technology.

Here’s what he said (edited for clarity):

We’re focusing on autonomous systems. It’s a core technology that we view as very important and probably one of the most difficult AI projects to work on. There is a major disruption looming there. You’ve got kind of three vectors of change happening generally in the same time frame. If you’ve driven an electric car, it’s actually a marvelous experience.

The “three vectors” Cook refers to are as follows:

  • Self-driving technology
  • Electric vehicles
  • Ride-hailing

As you may have suspected, he ultimately declined to say whether or not Apple might eventually manufacture its own car. “We’ll see where it takes us,” Cook added.

“We’re not really saying from a product point of view what we will do.”

Watch the full video below.

Ever since rumors began swirling that Project Titan involves a self-driving vehicle, there’s been no shortage of reports analyzing whether or not Apple should build its own car.

In October of last year, Bloomberg reported that Project Titan had refocused from building an actual vehicle to developing autonomous self-driving software.

Whether or not the fruits of Apple’s labor will ever see the light of day in CarPlay, or perhaps as a standalone new app for autonomous driving, remains to be seen.