The tech firm reportedly won’t pursue ‘Project Titan’ any longer, despite years of work on its self-driving EV technology.
Apple has been working on a ‘secret’ car project for about a decade, but according to a report by Bloomberg the whole thing has now been ditched. The 2000-strong team that was working on the car codenamed Project Titan, which was widely rumoured to be a self-driving electric model, will reportedly be repurposed to work on AI, following some layoffs.
It’s not known how many of the Apple car staff will be let go, as the announcement was not made publicly. Apple has been very quiet about its plans to go into car making, but along with the widespread rumours in the car industry, we also saw spy shots of Project Titan and heard from mainstream car makers that the tech firm had been in talks with them about sharing resources.
Apple and McLaren even held talks about investment or takeover in 2016, just after Apple started work on Titan. However, in more recent years it was rumoured that the project was getting bogged down by changes of plan and high staff turnover. Speculation was also rife that Apple had already given up on building an actual electric car and was instead focused on the self-driving technology only.
Further rumours suggested that the car did exist but wouldn’t be able to self-drive as expected, despite Apple taking on key engineers from brands like Tesla.
The car was supposed to cost less than $100,000, a tough ask for a new manufacturer, even one with Apple’s resources. Reports also stated that Apple bosses were worried that the car would never be able to provide a big enough profit margin, which could be another reason for its cancellation this week.