Apple is ending its long-running, secret project to make an electric car that drives itself, leaders told the team in a short meeting Tuesday morning. Has learned that the company has stopped working on the project and is likely to lay off hundreds of workers.
Bloomberg, which first reported that the project was scrapped, says that some of the remaining workers will be moved to work on Apple’s generative AI projects. Other people will be fired if they can’t find new jobs within the company in 90 days. One worker on the car project who asked to remain anonymous because they were not allowed to talk about their job said that about 1,400 people were still working on it.
The choice to end the project comes at a time when big automakers are rethinking their investments in electric cars and when projects for self-driving cars are getting more attention. People also thought that Apple’s move into the car industry might be good for its bottom line, giving it a new way to make money to help it deal with slowing hardware sales and regulatory threats to its services business. Apple wouldn’t say anything.
Apple began working on its car project, which is officially called “Project Titan,” in 2014. At one point, there were about 5,000 people working on it. But Apple has changed its mind many times in the last ten years, focusing on both making an all-electric Tesla competitor and a fully autonomous car more like what Waymo has made. Bloomberg reported in January that Apple’s top executives and board were putting pressure on the project’s leaders to find a way to get something to market as soon as possible.
An employee said that Apple’s COO, Jeff Williams, and Kevin Lynch, vice president in charge of Titan, told the team about the news in a short meeting on Tuesday that ran about 12 minutes and did not take any questions. This person said the announcement was sudden, but they said the choice wasn’t because priorities are always changing.
Over the years, a number of well-known car executives have gone through Project Titan. One important person who used to work on the project is Doug Field, who used to be a senior at Tesla but now works at Ford. Apple also hired people from Ford and Lamborghini.
Also Read: The First Day of Apple Vision Pro
It hired Ulrich Kranz from the EV company Canoo in 2021. Kranz used to work for BMW and helped run the i3 program. Apple even had talks with Canoo when it was looking for intellectual property, contract manufacturers, and people to work for it. During that search, they also talked to Hyundai and Kia.
What do you say about this story? Visit Parhlo World For more.
