Apple's endeavours to foray into the industry aren't new - it is already involved in the automotive industry across the world by the means of the CarPlay system. Additionally, reports of the company working on its own car were strong till the news of the deadline being pushed back to 2021 from 2019 came in. Apple then reportedly removed multiple people from the project in September and that number grew to hundreds in October.
Instead of making their own self-driving car, the company had purportedly decided to focus on developing sensors and software that enable autonomous driving. Furthermore, reports claim that the remaining team had been asked to demonstrate that their self-driving innovations could work by late 2017.
Source: Automotive News
