Apple is definitely working on a self-driving car project, and according to some new documents, Project Titan appears to be further along than anyone thought.
Rumors of Apple’s car project first starting surfacing at the beginning of this year, with an announcement not expected until 2020 at the earliest, but the Guardian reports that Apple is already trying to secure a super-secret Bay Area test facility for the electric car.
Apple engineers met with officials from GoMentum Station in May, reports the Guardian, claiming Apple plans to turn the 2,100-acre former naval base in near San Francisco into a high-security testing ground for autonomous vehicles.
In documents obtained under a public records act request, Apple engineer Frank Fearon wrote: “We 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].”
Details on the Apple Car and it’s features are still unknown. Tim Cook reportedly signed off on the project last year. A team of hundreds of engineers have been quietly working on the project at an anonymous office building in Sunnyvale for the past year, just four miles away from the main campus.
If Apple does use the GoMentum Station, it would have access to the ‘largest secure test facility in the world.’ Mecedes-Benz and Honda have already used the world war two era facility’s 20 miles of paved highways and city streets for their own self-driving car experiments.
GoMentum Station’s testing grounds feature highway overpasses, cattle grids, railway crossings, tunnels and almost everything else Apple could want to test its electric car in a realistic scenario. Best part about the facility is it’s guarded by the military, so any Apple fanboys looking to get a peak at Jony’s car design will be thwarted at all attempts.
