CUPERTINO, CA–Apple Inc. says it is moving forward with self-driving-car technology and is targeting 2024 to produce a passenger vehicle that could include breakthrough battery technology.

The company's automotive efforts, known as Project Titan, have proceeded unevenly since 2014 when Apple first started to design its own vehicle from scratch. Eventually, Apple drew back the effort to focus on software and reassess its goals.

In 2018, Doug Field, an Apple veteran who had worked at Tesla Inc, returned to oversee the project. Apple's current goal of building a personal vehicle for the mass market contrasts with rivals such as Alphabet Inc's Waymo, which has built robo-taxis to carry passengers for a driverless ride-hailing service.

Central to Apple's strategy is a new battery design that could “radically” reduce the cost of batteries and increase the vehicle's range, according to a third person who has seen Apple's battery design.