Just now, the latest resolutions from Apple’s executive meeting were revealed, officially terminating the Project Titan, the secret car manufacturing plan that has been under development for ten years.
All work on Project Titan has stopped, with team members either being transferred to other positions or facing layoffs.
In short, after secretly pushing for 10 years, burning through $10 billion, and even lowering their goals, Apple still lacks the determination to succeed in car manufacturing and publicly retreats.
For Apple, the Titan project was just a valued but not vital initiative, with hundreds of millions of dollars in investment each year representing only a small fraction of Apple’s more than $20 billion annual R&D spending.
Less strategically important than Tesla, less combat-effective than Huawei, and even less committed and invested than Xiaomi, how could Apple not fail in car manufacturing?
News has just arrived that Apple has announced the closure of its car manufacturing project.
In a brief meeting held earlier this week, Apple’s executives made the following final decision:
The project is to be shut down, and car manufacturing is to be discontinued. Core members are given priority in transitioning to generative AI projects, while others have three months to move to new assignments. Workers without a place to go will face layoffs.
It’s said that Project Titan involved more than 1,400 Apple employees.
Reports reveal three primary reasons for Apple’s decision to terminate the car project.
First is investment returns. Car manufacturing involves large investments, a long cycle, fierce competition, and risks large financial losses.
Secondly, Apple believes that global regulatory pressures around autonomous vehicle technology will continue to toughen, causing the company to be constantly mired in public opinion and regulatory issues.
Finally, there is a lack of internal drive to win. CEO Tim Cook did not lead an all-in effort, project leaders were frequently replaced, project goals were constantly downgraded, and morale was low. Delivery was repeatedly delayed, and Apple’s ideal launch window is disappearing.
From the outside, Apple’s smart car was supposed to launch by 2028. Not even discussing its competitiveness against Tesla, it might even fall behind multiple Chinese automakers upon launch, entering the market in a disadvantaged position.
And most importantly, with the launch of Vision Pro, Apple has fundamentally established a new strategy focused on XR and spatial computing. Cook’s various actions also indicate that this is the main direction of Apple’s resource investment for the next ten years.
So since Vision Pro “took over”, the countdown to the end of Titan has been set.
The decision to shut down the car project wasn’t sudden.
In March 2022, renowned Apple analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo, exposed internal uncertainty surrounding Apple’s car project, hinting at a reorganisation and goal resetting.
By January of this year, it was reported that the release date of Apple’s first smart car had been pushed back to 2028. The first product could only offer an L2+ autonomous driving experience, without any significant breakthrough compared to Tesla’s existing products.
From the beginning of Apple’s interest in cars, tracked back before the iPhone was born, all the way through various temptations and attempts to enter the automotive field, and the continual replacement of project leaders, Apple’s venture into car manufacturing could be described as a series of ups and downs.
Apple’s termination of Project Titan is not entirely unexpected.
The biggest reason for this decision is that, with the launch of Vision Pro, Apple has essentially established XR and spatial computing as its new strategic direction for the next ten years. As a result, the countdown to the end of the Titan project had already begun.
The only unresolved questions were how and when it would end.
Meanwhile, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk is back to watching the drama unfold from the sidelines. Considering Apple’s many stumbling blocks in car manufacturing, its venture was doomed to failure.