Apple has been making the rounds for its upcoming product that hasn’t even been officially confirmed by the technology giant — Apple Car. The electric vehicle from the company, which is being developed as Project Titan, has cropped up in news several times.

Now, yet another news related to the Apple Car has surfaced online and this time it is related to a patent that the Cupertino-based company filed and has now been granted.

The US Patent and Trademark Office has granted a new patent to Apple which appears to be a sunroof technology for the upcoming electric car from the company. While it doesn’t explicitly confirm that the technology is for the car but it doesn’t need any confirmation as sunroof technology is not something that can be used on an iPhone or iPad or even Mac.

The document also shows various drawings of what appears to be a car’s roof. Some of the diagrams indicate how the sunroof would move while some showcase the mechanism within the sunroof.

Further, an abstract in the patent application reads: “a vehicle includes a roof, an opening in the roof, and a window that is located forward from the opening.” This effectively confirms that it is for the car. The patent reveals a variable opacity glass which means that the user will be able to control the transparency of the sunroof.

A recent report had claimed that the upcoming Apple Car, which will be an electric vehicle with support for a fully autonomous self-driving feature, could debut by 2025. The project is facing several issues but the top-most problem is the company’s inability to retain people who are working on this project.

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Apple’s most-awaited self-driving electric car was in the news a few months ago and now once again, the upcoming vehicle from the technology giant, which has not yet been officially announced, is in the news, hinting at the Apple Car roadmap.

A new report coming from Bloomberg, citing sources aware of the development, claims that the upcoming Apple Car — an electric vehicle with support for a fully autonomous self-driving feature — will debut by 2025.

It is being reported that this Apple Car project from the Cupertino-based tech giant, which is called Project Titan, being headed by Kevin Lynch, will be a fully automated self-driving offering without any pedals or steering.

Earlier, it was claimed that the company was stuck between two different developments paths — a traditional EV with some enhanced driver-assist features, or a more sophisticated EV capable of truly autonomous driving with no input from its passengers. It now seems that the technology giant has chosen the latter option.

However, there’s a possibility of Apple adding some kind of an emergency takeover mode for the car, which is still being discussed internally. It is said to have open-concept seating and a larger iPad-like infotainment system.

The company has still not locked in the business model for this project. The Bloomberg report hints about Apple considering to have its own fleet of self-driving cars operating like Uber or Lyft instead of selling the cars to individuals. However, it is more likely that Apple will sell its car to individuals.

Apple is reportedly not looking to develop a proprietary charging system for the car as the company could make it compatible with the “combined charging system” or CCS standard so that it is possible to charge the vehicle at most public fast-charging stations.

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Earlier this week, Apple was granted a new patent that was related to its upcoming Project Titan. The new patent was for technology related to assisting the driver’s visibility to help in poor weather conditions.

According to a PatentlyApple report, the Cupertino based giant was recently granted the patent by the US Patent and Trademark Office, which is related to its Project Titan. The document in question is regarding a new visibility system that is designed to assist drivers in viewing key road signs. This would be especially useful in bad weather conditions like heavy snow, thick fogs or smogs, and even dust. In driving, visibility is a very crucial aspect, which heavily ties into safety as well.

Thus, in low visibility conditions, a system that helps drivers in seeing other vehicles on the road or other hazards could reduce the risk of accidents or any other incidents. As per the patent, the vehicle with this system would be able to lower the risk of collision by utilizing an additional system that features radar systems, vision based cameras, and even light detection and ranging through LiDAR technology. Since poor weather conditions could also affect the reliability of the visibility system, like water vapor that can absorb or scatter light, improving detectability is paramount to such systems.

The patent granted to Apple covers a retroreflector system that includes a “plurality of retroreflectors.” In other words, the retroreflectors are configured to reflect a radar signal, a light, a LiDAR signal, or any other type of signal to a respective signal source. This might even have the sensor being partially embedded in an outer panel of the vehicle, which can be configured to allow the radar signal to pass through to the plurality of retroreflectors. While the system is described in detail, it is still unknown if Apple is actually working on such a product. So stay tuned.

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Apple has been working on several new technologies and one of them is for the autonomous car with which the company has entered another category of products — Electric Vehicles. Now, there’s some major development related to this.

A new report from Reuters claims that Apple is going forward with its self-driving car technology and is planning to start production by 2024. And it’s not just the car but the company is also working on a “next level” battery technology.

For those who are unaware, the autonomous car project of Apple, called Project Titan, has been in the works since 2014 and the company started the design of its own electric car from the scratch.

However, the project struggled to proceed smoothly and at one point, Apple decided to just focus on the software part of the technology. But a couple of years back, Doug Field returned to Apple from Tesla to oversee the project and revamped the team.

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It seems that the development of this project has been significant enough for the company to build commercial vehicles. Reuters adds that Apple’s goal is to make a personal vehicle for the mass market while its competitors like Google‘s Waymo is building robo-taxis to carry passengers for a driverless ride-hailing service.

The report also sheds light on the battery that could be used in the car. A person aware of the development says that a new battery design could “radically” reduce the cost of batteries and at the same time, increase the vehicle’s range.

It is not yet clear which company would assemble the Apple-branded car. There’s also a possibility that Apple may decide to go ahead with the software part and integrate its technology into a car made by a traditional automaker.

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