San Francisco : Apple is searching for a place to test a car — potentially a self-driving vehicle — in California’s Bay Area, according to a former naval base that functions as a test site for autonomous and connected cars.
In correspondence obtained by The Guardian, Apple engineer Frank Fearon wrote to the GoMentum station that the company “would like to get an understanding of timing and availability for the space, and how we would need to coordinate around other parties who would be using it”.
The station, owned by the local Contra Costa Transportation Authority, confirmed to the Financial Times that it had received an inquiry from Apple but they had not yet used the facility in Concord, California. Jack Hall, program manager at GoMentum, said he did not know what Apple was planning to test.
The five thousand acre former navy weapons station specialises in connected and autonomous vehicles and claims to be the “largest secure test facility in the world”.
Apple did not respond to a request for comment.
Jeff Williams, Apple’s senior vice-president of operations, dropped the biggest hint yet that the iPhone maker was eyeing the automotive industry in May, when he said the car was the “ultimate mobile device”.
The company already offers CarPlay, an infotainment system, which is being built into the cars built by many leading automakers in the next year.
But it is thought to have plans to build an entire vehicle itself. In February, the Financial Times reported Apple was recruiting experts in automotive technology and vehicle design to work at a new top-secret research lab, according to several people familiar with the company.
Dozens of Apple employees, led by experienced managers from its iPhone unit, are researching automotive products at a confidential Silicon Valley location away from the company’s Cupertino campus, the people said.
However, it is not known at what stage the process is at. Experiments may need to be conducted in a large space with open roads very early on in the development of the vehicle. It is also not clear if Apple is working on a self-driving car, like those being developed by Google and Uber, or a technology-filled, potentially electric car, like Tesla.
—Financial Times
