DRIVING THE FUTURE

The fits and starts have most likely put Apple even further behind in the race toward the self-driving future. Waymo, the self-driving business spun out of Google, as well as startups and some carmakers have been testing various autonomous vehicles on public roads for years. Some of the programs have hit hurdles — Uber on Wednesday said it was shutting down its self-driving operations in Arizona and laying off about 300 employees in the area — but many have already gathered extensive data on autonomous driving patterns to improve their technology.

Apple declined to comment.

Apple originally began its car project — known internally as Titan and T172 — in 2014. At the time, Apple planned to build a single vehicle that would upend society and industry, in what would be the automotive version of the iPhone. The company set to work on an electric driverless car with a lush interior reminiscent of a lounge or living room, where passengers face each other instead of the road, according to two early employees.

Apple enlisted software programmers, automotive engineers, rocket scientists and the industrial-design team of Apple’s design chief, Jonathan Ive, to reimagine the car. They entertained a series of unconventional concepts, including augmented-reality or holographic displays embedded in windshields and windows, a sunroof made of a special polymer that reduces heat from the sun, and windows with adjustable tints — like those on Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner jets.

Two former employees also recalled how their colleagues built a model of a sport utility vehicle with four seats facing