The Apple Car project is dead, with several hundred of the tech giant’s employees involved in its development now reassigned to other parts of the business, according to a new report.
Bloomberg cites people familiar with the project in its report, which claims that the project – known internally as Project Titan – will now focus on developing autonomous vehicle software.
This confirms earlier reports that Apple had begun to shut down parts of the project and laid off dozens of employees after being forced into “rethinking its strategy”.
A year to prove software viability
According to Bloomberg’s report, Apple executives have set a deadline of a year for engineers to prove the viability of self-driving software development, and if it’s no good Project Titan will be cancelled altogether.
The shift away from the much-expected Apple Car project comes in the wake of disagreements over strategy, fluctuating leadership and issues with the company’s supply chain, the report says.
It’s also possible that Apple’s investors had an influence, being used to the large profit margins other Apple products command and therefore uncertain over the car project’s profitability.
Eric Paul Dennis, an analyst at the Centre for Automotive Research, told Bloomberg: “For a quality Apple-branded car they could probably get a healthy margin. They probably weren’t willing to compromise on quality issues.”
Apple started Project Titan back in 2014 and hired a number of high-profile developers and engineers, with an aim to having an Apple Car on sale by 2019 or so.
The aim was to revolutionise the transport industry the way the iPhone affected the mobile phone market in 2007, but by the end of last year the project was blighted by issues with leadership.
Google car still in development
After going through a number of different hands, the reins were handed to long-time Apple developer Bob Mansfield, who had worked on the original iPad, before Mansfield announced a strategy shift.
Mansfield said that he had examined the project and decided that Apple should instead focus on building software rather than trying to make a physical vehicle.
Back in August, a first wave of employees were let go and a second followed in September, and it’s now estimated that around 1,000 employees have been either fired or reassigned to other projects.
It might come as a shock to followers of the tech industry, who had envisioned an Apple-branded electric car which could navigate autonomously with the press of a button.
However, rival driverless car projects from the likes of Google are still underway, and even if the Apple Car is now dead, it’s expected that Google’s car will be officially in the next few years.