Apple Inc.’s self-driving car program, which according to a report Dec. 21 is aiming to produce an electric car by 2024, may actually take five to seven years to deliver, according to a report today from Bloomberg.

Referencing people with knowledge of the efforts, the report noted that the car is nowhere near the production stage, although they warned that the timeline could change. Most of those working on Apple’s car team are also said to be working from home or at the office for a limited time because of the COVID-19 pandemic, also slowing the company’s efforts to develop a full vehicle.

In addition, a later report from CNBC appeared to back up the later delivery date. Hyundai Motor Group told the outlet it’s in early-stage talks with Apple to work together on developing a self-driving car, but it likely wouldn’t be released until 2027. Still, Hyundai’s shares jumped 20% on the news.

Apple’s varying efforts to build an autonomous electric vehicle date back to 2014, but the company has had various stumbles across along the way. It was reported in 2016 that the Apple car project was dead in the water after Apple cut hundreds of positions and had switched its focus to pursuing self-driving technology that can be applied to other cars. Apple laid off 190 staff from the self-driving car project in February 2019.

The company’s efforts to simply build self-driving technology that can be applied to other vehicles has met with mixed success. In February 2019 it was reported that Apple ranked last out of 48 companies testing autonomous vehicle technology in California in terms of safety. Apple’s self-driving car technology required human intervention nearly every mile driven.

Apple’s efforts in the business were boosted, however, after the company Steve Jobs built acquired self-driving technology startup Drive.ai in June 2019. It was building a platform that applies deep learning and artificial intelligence to deliver cost-efficient autonomous vehicle software. The company claimed that its “deep learning-first approach” allows its autonomous vehicles to rapidly learn new driving scenarios and routes “without tedious engineering effort,” allowing it to scale out more easily to new locations.

That Apple is now back to building a so-called Apple Car again is a leap forward from simply being able to deliver autonomous vehicle technology. The car, at least as currently planned, is said to rely on third parties to supply components such as the lidar system.

Bloomberg noted that as Apple doesn’t manufacture its own products it will likely take the same approach with a vehicle; Apple previously worked with engineers from Magna International Inc. The vehicle is also said to include a breakthrough battery design that should make it cheaper to run with a longer driving range than existing electric vehicles.

Image: automobileitalia/Flickr