The company laid off over 200 employees in 2019 and shifted focus back to building an entire car, but ultimately ditched autonomous driving in 2022. The project's failure is attributed to both the company's inconsistent vision and the difficulty of perfecting self-driving technology. Apple now plans to apply its learnings from the project to its generative AI efforts, despite concerns that this could be another dead end.
Key takeaways:
- Apple has abandoned its decade-long project to build a high-tech car, codenamed Titan, after spending more than $10 billion and facing numerous challenges and changes in direction.
- The project, which began in 2014, was initially aimed at creating a self-driving electric vehicle to rival Tesla or Google's Waymo, but was repeatedly "scrapped and rebooted" due to disagreements over its direction.
- Despite attracting top talent and having over 2,000 employees on the project, Apple's car project faced numerous setbacks, including the layoff of over 200 employees in 2019 and a change in leadership that once again shifted the focus back to building an entire car.
- Apple now plans to use what it has learned about AI and automation in its new focus on generative AI, despite concerns that this could be another dead end for the company.