Apple scrapped plans to release an electric car with self-driving capabilities, a secret product that had been in the works for nearly a decade.
The company told employees in an internal meeting Tuesday that it had scrapped the project and that team members would be moved to different roles, including Apple’s artificial intelligence division, according to a person briefed on the discussion, who requested anonymity. because the announcement was not public.
As part of the restructuring, Kevin Lynch, an executive who had been involved in the car project, will report to John Giannandrea, the company’s head of artificial intelligence strategy, the person said.
Apple declined to comment. The news that Apple was ending its plan for cars was reported earlier by Bloomberg.
Although Apple had not revealed its car to consumers, the product was for many years one of Silicon Valley’s worst kept secrets because it was tested on public roads. The cancellation is a rare move by Apple, which usually doesn’t reject such public and high-profile projects.
The company has struggled in recent years to find new avenues of growth as its all-important iPhone has saturated the market and people upgrade their phones less frequently than in the past.
Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, has hinted publicly that Apple is interested in entering the automotive space. The company has also been testing hundreds of vehicles equipped with self-driving technology on the public for several years. The car, internally codenamed Titan and Project 172, was a challenging product to develop, as parts of the department were shut down, designs scrapped and restarted, and dozens of employees laid off along the way.
The car, which Apple spent billions of dollars researching, was intended as a rival to Tesla’s electric vehicles, which include self-driving features.
The product was important to Mr Cook’s legacy as it would have countered the perception that Apple had lost its ability to innovate and come up with the next big thing. Under Mr. Cook’s leadership, the company introduced a small number of new hardware products, including the Apple Watch, which now leads the smartwatch market. the HomePod smart speaker, which fell. and Vision Pro, the $3,500 glasses launched this month to compete with Meta’s virtual reality headset.
The company has invested heavily in the development of new technologies. Over the past five years, it has spent $113 billion on research and development.
