Apple’s autonomous EV delayed until 2026

Yahoo Finance’s Pras Subramanian joins the Live show to discuss reports that Apple has delayed its self-driving electric vehicle.

Video Transcript

BRAD SMITH: Pumping the brakes, Apple is scaling back its electric autonomous vehicle plans and delaying its target date to 2026, according to a new report from Bloomberg. Yahoo Finance's Pras Subramanian joins us now with the details on this one. Pras.

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Yeah, Brad, Mark Gurman with a big, extensive report on Apple's self-driving car initiatives here, postponing that car till 2026. Now hearing that it was supposed to be a robotaxi-type vehicle with no pedals, no steering wheel, but now they see this as being a problem in terms of level five autonomy. It's too many tech obstacles. We've seen that across with other companies.

So now they're talking about pushing the delay back, doing it such that you can have still a steering wheel and pedals, but you can sort of watch TV, play games on the highway. That's when they'll initiate the self-driving and just on the highways alone. So Apple kind of scaling that back.

But, you know, Gurman reporting that the car would cost over $100,000, so kind of targeting the Model S, Mercedes EQS sort of range there.

BRIAN SOZZI: Pras, there's no Apple car coming. It's not coming. We've been hearing about this for five years. It's not coming.

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: I know, I know, I know. It's another blow to sort of self-driving. We saw Ford pull the plug on Argo AI, and also all the problems that Elon Musk is having with Tesla and their investigation with NHTSA. So it's sort of another blow for self-driving, but the Apple car is-- it might come. But I mean--

BRIAN SOZZI: Let them stick to CarPlay. I mean, let's stick to the software. Why do they need to be investing all this capital in making cars?

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: I mean, it sounds like they think it's a big moneymaker for them, potentially another big product avenue they have not gone down before. They work with a company that can give them a platform to work with, maybe sort of have them maybe contract, manufacture, make this car. They provide all the chips and the software, which they're really good at. And maybe this is a product that can actually kind of scale up.

JULIE HYMAN: Maybe. I mean, at the same time, you have Uber. There's a new report that you can hail an Uber robotaxi in Las Vegas. So, like, there are pockets of it. I mean, when we talked to the Argo AI CEO-- I don't know-- in 2020, even, maybe it was, he said that it's not for every use case. And so maybe taxis are the use case that does make more sense.

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: In certain urban environments where you're doing short travel, a defined sort of grid pattern maybe-- like you said in Vegas, Uber is going to partner with, I think, it's called Motional--

JULIE HYMAN: Motional, yeah.

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: --to do that. It's funny because they pulled the plug on their self-driving initiative two years ago. So they're kind of dipping-- they're dipping their toe back in there in a limited way. And then eventually, they say that in 2023, you'll see the cars without actual operators. Like, right now, there will be operators driving with the car, so we'll see that happen. And that should be interesting to see what that's like. But I agree with you. You're not going to see all out, full self-driving everywhere, at least not for a while.

BRAD SMITH: It's also Vegas, where there's pretty much one temperature or one weather pattern all the time, so--

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: And everyone's partying.

BRAD SMITH: --consistent in that. Yeah.