Apple has decided to ditch it’s ongoing long term effort to build an autonomous electric car.
The company’s executives made the announcement in a short meeting with the team earlier this week, where they also hinted that the company is likely cutting hundreds of employees from the team.
Apple’s Chief Operating Officer, Jeff Williams and Vice President in charge of Titan, Kevin Lynch, broke the news to the team Tuesday in a short meeting that lasted about 12 minutes, and did not take questions.
Some remaining employees will be shifted to Apple’s generative AI projects, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the project’s cancellation. Others will have 90 days to find a reassignment to other roles inside the company, or they will be let go. According to one employee who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about their work, the car project still had around 1,400 employees working on it.Apple first started working on its car project, known internally as “Project Titan,” in 2014 with around 5,000 workers saddled with the project.
Bloomberg reported in January that the project’s leadership was under pressure from Apple’s top executives and its board to find a way to bring something concrete to market sooner than later.
Project Titan was once run by former Tesla executive Doug Field. Apple also poached executives from Lamborghini and Ford. In 2021, the company hired Ulrich Kranz, a former BMW executive who helped run the i3 program, away from EV startup Canoo.
Philips Babatunde