Latest speculation has the ‘Apple Car’ rolling out between 2025-2028 (or later)

Don’t hold your breath for an Apple-made automobile anytime soon, as speculation is all over the map as to when/if this might happen.

On December 21, the Economic Daily News claimed the long-rumored “Apple Car” is running at least two years ahead of schedule and will be released in the third quarter of 2021. That same day Reuters — referencing two unnamed “people familiar with the matter” — made the more feasible prediction (if still unlikely, in my opinion) that the tech giant plans to begin production on an Apple-branded self-driving vehicle starting in 2024.

Now, in a note to clients — as noted by MacRumors — Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said he felt that a launch is unlikely until 2025-2027 at the earliest.

He wrote: “We predicted in a previous report that Apple will launch Apple Car in 2023–2025 […] However, our latest survey indicates that the current development schedule of Apple Car is not clear, and if development starts this year and everything goes well, it will be launched in 2025–2027 at the earliest. Due to changes in the EV/self-driving market and Apple’s high-quality standards, we would not be surprised if Apple Car’s launch schedule is postponed to 2028 or later.

I’ve long doubted that the company would build a car from scratch, and the Reuters’ report offers some insight into this. To wit:

It remains unclear who would assemble an Apple-branded car, but sources have said they expect the company to rely on a manufacturing partner to build vehicles. And there is still a chance Apple will decide to reduce the scope of its efforts to an autonomous driving system that would be integrated with a car made by a traditional automaker, rather than the iPhone maker selling an Apple-branded car, one of the people added