Apple recently abandoned its long-standing project to create a futuristic electric car — a secret project code-named Titan and has instead redirected its attention towards generative AI. A new report reveals the disorganized management and challenges faced in developing autonomous cars within the company, painting a negative picture of the venture.
Apple’s car project underwent multiple restarts as company leaders disagreed on its direction, which ranged from creating a self-driving electric vehicle to competing with Tesla and Google’s Waymo. This resulted in significant financial losses of over $10 billion without a finished product.
Self-driving cars were all the rage when the project kicked off in 2014. Software engineers were confident that autonomous driving was a problem that could be solved — something that seems decidedly less certain now.
In fact the company briefly flirted with the idea of outright acquiring Tesla, holding several discussions with the automaker’s co-founder and CEO Elon Musk. Of course, that never materialized.
Apple initially had ambitious plans to build a self-driving car, but by 2016 they decided to focus on developing self-driving software instead. Despite this shift in focus, the project faced setbacks and in 2019, over 200 employees were laid off. There was also a change in leadership that led to a renewed focus on building a whole car. However, in 2022, Apple ultimately abandoned the idea of autonomous driving altogether.
Fast forward to this February, Apple made the decision to stop working on its self-driving car project. This failure could be attributed to the company’s changing vision and the challenges of developing self-driving technology. Even industry leaders like Tesla and General Motors’ Cruise division have faced criticism over the safety of their technology and have not been able to release fully autonomous vehicles till date.
Reference- Apple website, Reuters, Futurism, The Verge, Inside EVs, CNBC