Report: Apple Has Given Up on Smart Cars

With the wild success of Vision Pro solidifying its future, Apple has decided to give up on its decade-long efforts to build an electric smart car.

According to a report from the ever-reliable Mark Gurman, Apple informed the 2000 people in its Project Titan team of the decision just this morning, noting that many of them will be moving to the Next Big Thing it will invent, generative AI. Others will be laid off.

Apple spent many billions of dollars trying to push into the car industry, starting in 2014. But it’s always been a struggle, and the firm has suffered major defections over the years as the effort stalled. Not helping matters, sales of electric vehicles (EVs) are expected to contract this year. Also not helping matters, science: Apple’s initial prototypes were a complete fabrication in which the cars had no steering wheels or pedals. But it has had to continually scale back its expectations while it kept pushing potential ship dates further and further out.

Whether Apple’s generative AI efforts will go the way of Vision Pro or Project Titan is, of course, unclear. But given the excitement around AI and the rapid advances we see elsewhere, Apple is smart to jump on the bandwagon, albeit slowly.