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We’ve heard rumors about Apple developing a car for almost a decade, but it looks like the company has decided to abandon the project.
According to Bloomberg, Apple executives told staff on Tuesday that it's canceling its effort to produce an electric car, which was originally supposed to be fully autonomous.
Instead, the company is shifting its resources to focus on generative AI, one of the company’s biggest priorities. The restructuring impacts 2,000 employees who were working on the car project. The remaining employees, such as hardware and car engineers, will have a chance to reapply for other jobs at the company. But Bloomberg reports that layoffs are expected.
It's not clear why Apple is killing the project. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says “the decision was finalized this month by Apple’s top executives after the project reached a make-or-break point. The company spent years changing strategy in an effort to save the effort.”
The strategy included postponing the car’s launch date from 2026 to 2028 while also downgrading the EV's driverless capabilities. But it seems the changes weren’t enough to salvage the project, which reportedly remained in “pre-prototype” stages.
Earlier this month, Wired reported that Apple quadrupled the number of miles it tested on public roads last year compared to 2022 and beat its total in 2021 by a factor of more than 30.
The effort cost Apple billions. Originally known as Project Titan, the car endeavor was expected to become a major new business for Cupertino. Back in 2018, Apple hired Doug Field, a former Apple engineer who later went to Tesla, to lead the project. But Field left Apple for Ford in 2021, leading to renewed doubts about the rumored iCar.
Apple estimated that its car would be priced at around $100,000, Bloomberg adds. But the company’s board was worried about investing in a project that might never take off. Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.