Confirmed: Apple is working on a self-driving vehicle to rival Google

Let’s take a step back and look at what we have: Apple wants to check out a facility prime for testing cars, and have taken steps to assure secrecy in examining the facility.

Apple isn’t the only tech company developing autonomous cars, and it’s not the only one looking into the GoMentum station as a testing ground, either. We’ve all seen that testing mysterious cars on public roads only causes people to start poking their noises around to work out what’s going on. GoMentum Station, near San Francisco, has reinvented itself as a proving ground for self-driving cars and connected vehicle technology but, more importantly perhaps to Apple, its roughly 20 miles of paved city streets and highways are kept secure by military police.

News of Apple’s interest in the former base is the latest glimpse into Apple’s secretive autonomous-car program.

Why this matters: Rumors of Apple’s auto project, codenamed Project Titan according to various reports, have been swirling for months, but the extent of the company’s progress on the project was unknown.

“We would… like to get an understanding of timing and availability for the space, and how we would need to coordinate around other parties who would be using [it]”.

Tim Cook has been in private meetings with automotive industry executives including Fiat-Chrysler boss Sergio Marchionne. But the documents obtained by the Guardian indicate the company is much closer to realizing its dreams than previously thought.

Randy Iwasaki, executive director of the Contra Costa Transportation Authority (who owns GoMentum Station) would only say, “We had to sign a non-disclosure agreement with Apple”.

In The Guardian’s report, Fearon is quoted as writing GoMentum officials asking for specifics on how the layout of the area could be used to test autonomous cars in a real-world situation. Apple declined to comment.