Apple’s Project Titan, a long-rumoured and speculated-upon attempt by the company to design and launch its own electric vehicle, has concluded. That’s according to a Bloomberg report which claims that the EV project has been shuttered and staff involved have been moved to other tasks.
According to the report, some of the engineers involved have been retasked to work on generative AI for the company. It’s almost a pity, knowing that we’re unlikely to see a self-driving EV from Apple (with a R2 million starting price tag), but given the number of delays to the decade-long speculative project, perhaps it’s not that surprising.
Titan fallen
What’s also unsurprising is Apple’s reallocation of the folks working on Project Titan. Releasing a new car in the States (and everywhere else) is a laborious process at best and when you throw EV capability and self-driving into the mix, you’ve got a recipe for a regulatory headache. Generative AI, on the other hand, is moving too fast for regulators to catch up to it. It’s the perfect thing to develop in 2024.
Titan’s cancellation was relatively recent, according to Bloomberg‘s sources, and the consequences of it have yet to be felt. Many of the project’s software and AI engineers are being moved internally but there are automotive engineers that don’t have a place to go within Apple. Expect Apple to announce at least a few layoffs soon. Perhaps those affected can work for Hyundai, which was totally not helping Apple with its EV ambitions in 2020 and 2021.
Or maybe they can finally get around to making that Apple television set we’ve heard about for almost two decades. Nah, that’s probably a complete pipe dream. Super-intelligent AI and virtual reality goggles it is, then.
