According to a new report from Bloomberg citing “people with knowledge of the matter,” Apple will scuttle its long-running electric car project and shift many employees to Apple’s generative AI work.
The Apple Car, codenamed Project Titan, has been an open secret for about a decade, with numerous reports of its existence dating back to 2015. Over the years, Apple has hired hundreds of people to make it work, and it’s hard to keep it a secret.
Over the years, the project was delayed several times and changed scope just as often. Initially envisioned as a fully autonomous car, without wheels or pedals, it was ultimately delayed until at least 2026 with a reduced scope to “Level 2” or “Level 3” driver assistance technology (where the car only drives under certain conditions and the driver must be aware and ready to take over). It was never made clear who would make the car, or what its features and specifications would be other than it being electric, even though it was a luxury car aiming for a sub-$100,000 price tag. . The most recent report claims the timeline was pushed back to 2028.
The new report from Bloomberg claims that Apple surprised the team of nearly 2,000 employees with the news that their project was ending on February 27. Many employees will be transferred to John Giannandrea’s division in an effort to bolster the company’s generative AI efforts. The Special Projects Group (the name of the group working on Project Titan) also employed many hardware engineers and automobile designers; it is unclear what will happen to these employees, although layoffs are expected.
This seems like a good refocusing of efforts for the company. We’ve always viewed the whole car project as kind of a waste for Apple; CarPlay is software and that’s what Apple is good at, but making and maintaining a whole vehicle doesn’t leverage Apple’s core strengths and requires entirely new areas of expertise that don’t necessarily benefit the rest of the company’s products and services.
