I-phone on wheels: Apple kills electric vehicle project, switches focus to AI

Apple has nixed its electric car side hustle, revealing the move in a surprise missive to the around 2000 staff who work on the project.

A number of staff in what has been dubbed the Special Projects Group will be shifted into the artificial intelligence division, reported Bloomberg.

Project Titan, the codename for the multi-billion project, was launched in 2014 with a goal to build a self-driving EV that would cost less than $US100,000.

Reportedly, Apple founder Steve Jobs was keen on moving into EVs after Tesla debuted its first vehicle in 2008. 

But the company has struggled to make the project work amid high staff turnover and constantly changing strategies and plans. Furthermore, demand for EVs has lost momentum this year and AI is expected to be more profitable for Apple, given its trajectory, than cars. 

Apple decided to kill the project just a month after delaying the initial car release to 2028. But rumours have swirled for years about what exactly Apple was working on. 

Wired reported this month that its self-driving technology logged 45,000 miles last year, while Bloomberg reported that the debut had been pushed back to 2028, from the original 2025.

In 2021 it also reported that Apple had shifted its priorities from building an EV to self-driving technology. Before that, a deal with Hyundai put 2024 on the agenda for a launch. 

Can a tech company make a car? Yes

A number of the biggest tech companies launched their own car divisions after Tesla, which itself combines car-making with technology, proved that smart and electric vehicles were possible – and sellable. 

In 2022 the EV maker was even said to be building an app store to rival Apple’s. 

And ever since car divisions at Apple, Sony, Huawei, Xiaomi, FoxConn and others have been announced, scepticism abounded about whether they could successfully shift from the ‘iterate until it works’ mindset to that required in the car industry of ensuring everything is safe and works well before the first product is made. 

But some successes are happening, almost entirely among deep-pocketed Asian tech giants though.  

A Sony-Honda collaboration was promised to deliver the debut Afeela EV in 2025, a date the joint venture is committed to with pre-orders open and deliveries promised for North America in 2026. 

Chinese tech giant Huawei unveiled its first EV in 2021 and debuted two new cars last year, one of which is a luxury sedan collaboration with carmaker Chery designed to rival Tesla’s Model 3. This year it set up a new car making business.

Huawei is in hot competition with Xiaomi, which launched its own SU7 sedan just two days after Huawei launched its Aito M9 SUV, in December. 

Foxconn has been making big promises for several years, saying last year it wants to make half of all EVs sold globally, but is yet to produce its own vehicle. 

The news that Apple, with its formidable reputation for cutting edge design, is bowing out of the car making fad will disappoint many loyal followers of the brand: even though the company hadn’t confirmed it was even working on an EV, in 2022 a market research firm found there was huge demand for an Apple car.

Rachel Williamson

Rachel Williamson is a science and business journalist, who focuses on climate change-related health and environmental issues.