If this report is accurate, it could have been a good thing Apple’s long-in-development EV project was cancelled.
While we may never actually see what the Apple Car looked like, in his latest ‘Power On’ newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman revealed more details about the EV’s design. According to Gurman, the Apple Car could have looked like a blocky Canoo Lifestyle minivan. Yes, the image at the top of this story is what the vehicle looked like as of 2020, according to the report, so if you were hoping for a sleek SUV or sedan, that’s not what Apple was working on.
“The Apple car’s circa-2020 design resembled the Canoo Lifestyle Vehicle — a futuristic van with rounded edges — but it had dark black windows with an adjustable tint,” writes Gurman in the report.
The Volkswagen ID.Buzz-like vehicle featured an all-glass sunroof, whitewall tires with a black centre and a striking white exterior. Other features included Level 5 autonomous driving, which means the car didn’t feature a steering wheel and offered a minimized user interface. However, by the time the EV was cancelled, the autonomous driving had been dialled down to Level 2, offering more standard features like Highway Driving Assist, which maintains the distance between cars and steers for the driver.
In the report, Gurman also outlines an earlier version of the car when Apple’s former chief design officer Jony Ive was still part of the tech giant that more closely resembled the 1950s Volkswagen Microbus and was nicknamed the ‘Bread Loaf’ by those working on the project.
While part of me still wonders what the Apple Car might have really looked like, the more I learn about the EV, the more it seems to be a good thing that Apple killed the project.
Image credit: Canoo
