Apple Inc. is abandoning an ambitious decade-long effort to develop an electric car with self-driving capabilities, Apple Inc. reported Tuesday.
Bloomberg News first reported that Apple AAPL,
executives made the announcement internally on Tuesday that some employees on the automotive team would be moved to other parts of the company, particularly Apple’s AI division. Other workers will likely be laid off.
The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times later confirmed the report. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The project, dubbed Project Titan, has been rumored for years, with reports ranging from an Apple-branded fully autonomous vehicle without a steering wheel to a more conventional car with limited self-driving capabilities. Apple had reportedly once hoped the vehicle could compete with Tesla Inc. TSLA,
Electric vehicles and sell for around $100,000 each.
But the project has been plagued by technological hurdles, numerous delays and a weaker market for electric vehicles.
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Bloomberg reported in 2021 that Apple hoped to launch the vehicle by 2025; in 2022, it was reported that the effort had been scaled back and the target date had been pushed back to 2026.
As recently as January, Bloomberg reported that Apple had further scaled back its plans, with a new target date of 2028.
In all, Apple spent about a decade and billions of dollars on the project. But it was ultimately deemed too expensive and, according to Bloomberg, unlikely to produce the high profit margins Apple enjoys with its other products.
“It was now clear to Apple that a very different EV landscape was forming that would make this an uphill battle,” said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives tweeted Tuesday. “Most of these Project Titan engineers are now focused on AI at Apple, which is 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, compared with the S&P 500’s SPX’s 6.5% gain in 2024 and 28% gain over the past year .