What’s Going On Here?According to reports earlier this week, Apple’s planning to wind down the windows, crank up its favorite bangers, and build self-driving cars using its own battery technology by 2024 (tweet this). What Does This Mean?Apple hasn’t officially announced its foray into self-driving cars yet, but the report alone was significant and reliable enough to capture analysts’ attention and push the company’s shares higher. It’s not exactly farfetched: Apple first started designing self-driving vehicles from scratch in 2014, even if it’s since pared back its ambitions to focus solely on the software. But if this report’s to be believed, the tech giant’s now either using that software system in an Apple-branded car or licensing it to other automakers for a pretty penny. Why Should I Care?The bigger picture: Join the ride.
A bunch of well-known car and tech companies are determined to launch successful self-driving vehicles, even if it is taking longer than investors were hoping. But of those, only Waymo’s – owned by Google-parent Alphabet – is in public use. It might not be that way for long, mind you: General Motors-owned Cruise started testing self-driving vehicles in San Francisco earlier this month, Amazon’s Zoox just unveiled its self-driving robotaxi, and Tesla said last weekend that its (admittedly not fully autonomous) driver-assistance system will be available in early 2021.
Zooming in: It’s what’s on the inside that counts.
Central to Apple’s strategy is a new battery design that could massively reduce the cost of production and boost its cars’ range. And seeing as most electric vehicle batteries still trail internal combustion engines on pretty much every performance metric, that could be an essential differentiator – especially since self-driving vehicles are primarily expected to be used for long-distance trips. | 
