The
Apple Car project
is dead. After almost a decade of work, Apple is reportedly giving up on its ambitious project to launch a
Tesla rival
. According to a report in Bloomberg, Apple has halted its long-rumored “Project Titan” work on developing an
autonomous car
. Apple reportedly told 2,000 employees in an internal meeting on Tuesday, February 27.
The company is said to have informed the employees about the scrapping of the project. Chief operating officer Jeff Williams and project head Kevin Lynch reportedly broke the news to the team during a meeting that lasted less than 15 minutes.
The decision is said to have followed months of meetings between Apple's top executives and the company’s board over how to proceed. This is the first time ever that Apple is pulling the plug on a high-profile project. Apple had hired a number of key leaders to work on the project, including Tesla’s former Autopilot software director.
As the
Apple Car
project shutters, the big question is what happens to the 2000-strong team that was working on the project. Here are the likely scenarios as per media reports.
Job cuts are imminent
Apple is expected to relocate about a third of the Apple Car team to other divisions. According to Bloomberg, hundreds of employees working on autonomous driving hardware, car interiors and exteriors, and vehicle electronics will need to seek new jobs inside the company. If they can’t find roles, they will be asked to go. The report suggests that some employees have already been informed that they’ll be heading for the exits.
Some employees to be moved to Apple iOS team
According to the report, there are three main groups within SPG — a software team under executive Dan Dodge; a cloud engineering and software group under Libo Meyers; and a software project management team under Vera Carr — will be shifted to Craig Federighi’s software department to work on Apple’s main operating systems.
Some employees to be moved to ML team
The report further said that Apple’s artificial intelligence team for the car, which had been reporting to Stuart Bowers, will be shifted to work on generative AI in John Giannandrea’s machine learning division.
Vision Pro team too may absorb some of the Apple Car employees
Some of the car talent could also apply their skills to the Vision Pro. That product has many features, including the ability to create a virtual representation of its wearer, that rely on artificial intelligence.
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