It has been reported that Apple has ended its long-term plan to develop self-driving cars.
Apple Inc. is halting its ambitious decade-long effort to develop electric vehicles with self-driving capabilities, according to reports Tuesday.
Apple AAPL, Bloomberg News;
Executives announced internally Tuesday that some employees from the automotive team would be moved to other parts of the company, most notably Apple’s AI division. Other employees will likely be laid off.
The Wall Street Journal and New York Times later confirmed the report. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This effort, called Project Titan, has been rumored for years, with reports ranging from Apple-branded fully autonomous vehicles without a steering wheel to more conventional vehicles with limited self-driving capabilities. Apple once said this vehicle was owned by Tesla Inc. It was reportedly hoped that it would be able to compete with TSLA.
The EVs sell for about $100,000 each.
But the project has been plagued by technical hurdles, numerous delays and a weakening EV market.
Also read: Amazon lost about $1 billion on its Rivian investment last week.
Bloomberg reported in 2021 that Apple had hoped to launch the vehicle by 2025. Efforts were reportedly scaled back in 2022 and the target date was pushed back to 2026.
As recently as January, Bloomberg reported that Apple had scaled back its plans even further, setting a new target date of 2028.
In total, Apple invested about 10 years and billions of dollars into the project. But it was ultimately deemed too expensive and unlikely to generate the high profit margins that Apple enjoys on its other products, according to Bloomberg.
“This was the writing on the wall for Apple, with a very different EV landscape shaping up to be an uphill battle,” said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. tweeted tuesday. “Now most of our Project Titan engineers are all focused on Apple’s AI, and that’s the right move.”
Apple shares rose about 1% on Tuesday. The stock is down about 5% year to date but is up 24% over the past 12 months, while the S&P 500’s SPX is up 6.5% in 2024 and up 28% year-to-date.
