They quoted an Apple engineer saying that the company was inquiring about the timing and availability of this particular space, which has been used by Mercedes-Benz and Honda for their own self-driving cars.
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As recently as May, a program manager at GoMentum Station told an Apple engineer in an email that the facility was working “to keep everything moving and to meet your testing schedule”.
In recent months, news of a lawsuit from a Massachusetts start-up working on electric auto batteries that accused Apple of poaching some of its engineers, fuelled speculation. The Guardian’s report seems to provide some evidence that Apple is at least starting to think about the testing phase. The facility is a 2,100 acre former Naval Base near San Francisco, and has features like faux gas stations and freeway overpasses.
As noted by the report, Apple has expressed interest in using GoMentum Station for testing purposes.
As per officials, it is the largest secure test facility in the world for testing validation and commercialization of connected vehicle (CV) applications and autonomous vehicles (AV) technologies. Apple however declined to comment.
There’s no telling how long it will be until Apple is ready to make an official announcement regarding its future in the automotive industry, but something is definitely stewing behind closed doors.
The newspaper said it has seen correspondence between Apple and a high-security test site near San Francisco, regarding a test location.
It was first reported in February 2015 that Apple has employed up to 1,000 employees for the mysterious Project Titan, which is believed to be automotive-related.
“We had to sign a non-disclosure agreement with Apple“, Randy Iwasaki, the executive director of the Contra Costa Transportation Authority told The Guardian.
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California’s Department of Motor Vehicles has issued permits to six companies, including Google and Tesla, to test autonomous cars on public roads.
