Autonomous vehicles are still in the testing phase, but already the competition is heating up. Manufacturers of autonomous vehicles are racing each other to make the venture viable and lucrative, and it probably won’t be long before delivery services and private citizens are using self-driving cars to get from place to place. But in the meantime, one company is losing the battle to keep its self-driving vehicle program under wraps. Apple recently filed a criminal complaint alleging corporate espionage regarding its Project Titan.
A Case of Corporate Espionage
Apple’s foray into the burgeoning autonomous vehicle industry has been kept a closely guarded secret. It wasn’t even known exactly how many Apple employees were working on the project until the company recently filed a criminal complaint alleging that a former engineer downloaded proprietary files before leaving to join a Chinese tech company. The criminal complaint reveals that Apple is expending considerable man hours on self-driving technology, with 2,700 “core employees” working on the project and a total of 5,000 workers familiar with the project.
The Evolution of Apple’s Self-Driving Car Project
One of the first glimpses of Apple’s project came in 2017, when the company received a permit to test autonomous vehicles on Californian roadways. Prior to that point, the company hadn’t even publicly acknowledged Project Titan, though it had been in the works for at least a few years. Initially, it was thought that Apple was attempting to build its own car to compete with Tesla’s electric cars. That aspect of the project appears to have been shelved, and Apple is now apparently focusing on producing the self-driving software necessary to control cars that other companies manufacture.
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