Home Australia The end of the iCar – Apple scraps its autonomous electric vehicle plans after a decade of work

The end of the iCar – Apple scraps its autonomous electric vehicle plans after a decade of work

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The tech giant originally intended to create a fully autonomous vehicle as part of a decade-old project internally called Titan. In the photo: a concept of Apple's autonomous car
  • Apple revealed this Tuesday to some employees that it would cancel the ‘Apple Car’

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Apple notified its employees on Tuesday that it was killing off the ‘Apple car,’ a long-awaited project that had been in the pipeline for more than a decade.

The decision to abandon its electric vehicle plan was revealed in an internal memo distributed to about 2,000 company employees. Bloomberg reported.

It said some employees from the team that had been developing the car, known as the Special Projects Group, will be moved to its artificial intelligence (AI) division.

However, not everyone would be saved and some layoffs would be inevitable, the outlet reported.

The tech giant originally intended to create a fully autonomous vehicle as part of a decade-old project internally called Titan. In the photo: a concept of Apple's autonomous car

The tech giant originally intended to create a fully autonomous vehicle as part of a decade-old project internally called Titan. In the photo: a concept of Apple’s autonomous car

1709064964 231 The end of the iCar Apple scraps its autonomous

1709064964 231 The end of the iCar Apple scraps its autonomous

When Apple CEO Tim Cook, pictured, was asked by the New York Times about the project in 2021, he said, “We’ll see what Apple does.” We investigate so many things internally. Many of them never see the light of day’

The cancellation of the project is a shock. Last month, Bloomberg itself reported that the company would launch the car as early as 2028 and scale back its autonomous driving capabilities.

The memo came from Apple COO Jeff Williams and Kevin Lynch, vice president in charge of the project, Bloomberg reported.

Apple’s electric car has been planned since at least 2014, and rumors about what it would entail have evolved during that period.

Although its initial plans were to create a fully autonomous vehicle, it recently scaled back its plans. Executives were also reportedly concerned that with the $100,000 price target, profit margins would be precariously thin.

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