Apple Inc has scaled back ambitious self-driving plans for its future electric vehicle and postponed the car's launch date to 2026, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
Following the report, the iPhone maker's shares fell by 2.4 per cent.
Since 2014, the company's automotive efforts have not progressed well, when it first started to design a vehicle from scratch.
The people told Bloomberg that Apple is planning a less ambitious design that will include a steering wheel and pedals and only support full autonomous capabilities on highways.
The report said that the company plans to develop a vehicle that lets drivers conduct other tasks on a freeway and be alerted with enough time to switch over to manual control.
In a Bloomberg report last year, Apple said Apple was going to launch its electric car as early as 2025 and refocusing the project around full self-driving capabilities.
The report said that Apple's ideal car would have no steering wheel and pedals, with interiors designed around hands-off driving.