The Apple Car project is no more, as the company has decided to pivot towards development of artificial intelligence (AI) projects, Bloomberg has reported.
According to Bloomberg sources, Apple made the announcement internally, to the surprise of the nearly 2,000 staff who had been on the Apple Car project. The decision was announced to Apple staff by chief operating officer Jeff Williams and Kevin Lynch, according to sources.
Many staff from the Apple Car team, known as the Special Projects Group, or SPG, will be moved to the artificial intelligence division led by Apple executive John Giannandrea, and these employees will focus on generative AI projects which are an increasingly key priority for the company, according to the report.
Also employed under the Apple Car team are ‘several hundred’ hardware engineers and vehicle designers, who will possibly be able to apply for jobs on other teams within Apple. There will be layoffs, Bloomberg wrote, however the number of those involved is unclear at this time.
The Bloomberg report also noted that Apple had recently imagined the Apple Car to be priced around US$100,000 (RM476,100), which is well into luxury car territory. In the United States, the Standard Range variant of Tesla Model S was announced last August to start from US$78,490 (RM373,690).
Apple executives were however reportedly concerned about the car’s ability to bring the profit margins typically enjoyed by Apple from its products, and its board was concerned that “hundreds of millions” were spent annually on a project that may not see completion.
Also known as Project Titan, the Apple Car project came to be known as far back as 2015, when a selection of automobile designers were revealed to be on board the project, including Marc Newson who designed the Ford 021C concept, Julian Hönig who was responsible for the Audi RSQ concept, and Aaron Von Minden who penned the BMW Gina concept.
The Apple Car was initially planned to be a fully autonomous, SAE Level 5 vehicle, though this was scaled back a year later in 2016 to use a Level 4 autonomous driving suite, or conditional full automation.
In January this year, the project was reported to have been delayed yet again, to 2028, and its self-driving capabilities further reduced to “Level 2+”, which is not an official SAE classification, but is understood to be a more advanced version of Level 2.
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Thank god!
Apple always competes in the high-end market but with BYD and the influx of Chinese EVs, Apple cannot compete at the scale required for them to generate enough profit to meet their shareholders’ expectations, so this move makes sense.
Finally Apple understand, EV no future…
hey Siri…..
Probably for the better. A sh*tty looking car with limited features and probably a lot of subscriptions needed costing $100k will not fly. Not many of their hardcore supporters will be able to afford it