Apple cancels long-rumored Apple Car development, more than $10 billion spent on project
Apple has reportedly cancelled its long-rumored Apple Car project, known as “Project Titan,” with Apple’s Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams telling around 2,000 employees this week working on the vehicle’s development that the project was being axed.
The widely known secret Apple Car was set to be the iPhone maker’s entrance into the automotive industry. The vehicle was said to be a Tesla-like EV, which would incorporate autonomous driving technology including advanced sensor systems, machine learning algorithms, and mapping solutions, all geared towards enabling the car to navigate without human intervention.
However, as reported by Bloomberg, Apple surprised approximately 2,000 employees working on the project this week that it would no longer be continuing work on the vehicle, with some of the car teams relocated move to Apple’s AI division.
Apple Car rumors first started in 2014, and since then, the development has encountered numerous challenges. The project’s focus has undergone several shifts, and internal conflicts have led to multiple changes in leadership. In 2021, Kevin Lynch, the head of Apple Watch, assumed control of the project. Under his guidance, efforts were made to streamline the project while ensuring the development of a functional car.
According to a report from The New York Times, Apple spent more than $10 billion working on the Apple Car over the last decade, with the ultimate reason the project failed was Apple’s inability to develop the software and algorithms for a car with autonomous driving.