It’s probably the worst-kept secret in the tech industry, but Apple’s much anticipated driverless car project is reportedly in trouble.
According to a report from the New York Times, the tech giant has been shutting down parts of the operation and laying off dozens of employees after being forced into “rethinking its strategy”.
The Apple Car project, codenamed Project Titan, has swallowed a significant amount of the company’s resources in the past few years for very little return, the report says.
Apple Car cancelled?
Apple first started looking seriously at building its car around two years ago, with the Project Titan team swelling to more than 1,000 people within 18 months.
However, the New York Times says that as the project grew it encountered a number of problems, with long-time head of the project, Steven Zadesky, leaving earlier this year.
One of the major problems with the project, the report claims, is that Apple is wary of rivals like Google, Uber and Ford beating it to the punch and releasing a fully autonomous vehicle first.
New focus on software and tech
Instead, under new project head Bob Mansfield, the focus of Project Titan has reportedly shifted from building a full vehicle to simply designing autonomous driving software and technology.
Apple has stood out from the majority of its competitors mainly due to its secrecy, with still no proper confirmation that it’s even working on a car at all.
This could prove to work in its favour if the report is to be believed however, and the company has at least made significant headway testing autonomous software the New York Times says.
