Abandoned $10 billion Apple Car project referred to as 'Titanic disaster' by employees
A report shares that "many" Apple employees considered Project Titan an inevitable failure and are happy to see it die in favor of work on artificial intelligence.
Apple's work on Project Titan cost $10 billion over a decade
The decade-long Project Titan follows a long and winding road past Jony Ive's hope for a self-driving car, secret race tracks, and a bid to buy Tesla. The Apple Car project is canceled for now, but that doesn't mean Apple won't reap the rewards of its hard work.
According to a report from The New York Times, at least some Apple employees are happy to see the end of Project Titan. The project's failure seemed likely and was sometimes referred to as "the Titanic disaster."
The concept behind Apple Car arrived just as Apple was wrapping work on Apple Watch. The company wanted to compete with Tesla and potentially capture a portion of the sizable auto industry.
Google and other Silicon Valley companies were targeting electric vehicles, so it seemed natural for Apple to take on the challenge. The report's details about engineers speaking to Jony Ive and team make it sound as if it was all but certain that a self-driving Apple Car was possible and imminent.
Jony Ive was a fan of the Fiat 600, even auctioned this custom one in 2013
After a decade of research, Apple is no closer to releasing a full self-driving vehicle than Tesla. No one has managed to get it done, and there's one problem that modern "AI" algorithms can't account for -- other humans on the road.
Luckily, work on autonomous systems and vehicle AI is highly transferable to other aspects of computing. Apple has allegedly invested $10 billion in Project Titan, but those funds aren't lost, as all of that work will now benefit its push into AI.
Reallocating resources
It was reported that Apple's abandonment of a vehicle project wasn't due to engineering impossibilities -- the company had already shifted to Level 2 autonomy down from Level 4. Building an electric car at Level 2 is commonplace and entirely possible for Apple.
No, the project end came down to margins. Apple would never be able to sell vehicles at its expected margins, especially with the declining EV market and competitors racing to the bottom.
Some members of the Project Titan team may be laid off, but others are being reassigned to AI projects or asked to apply for other positions at the company. If Apple ever decides to make an Apple Car again in the future, a lot of the groundwork is done.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
But let do a little math.
It was $10 Billions over a decade.
So… it was $1 Billion a year.
The last count of employees was… 2,000.
So… $1 B / 2,000 = 500,000-
Of course, not all employees would earn that money… but there are the cost of buildings and computers… And during the project there were a lot more employees.
Or we can calculate how many iPhones Pro Max it costed… $1 B / $1,200 = 840,000—
On a side note, this seems quite different from what Elon Musk and Tesla have done regarding their autonomous self driving system. Even letting Tesla owners be guinea pigs and risking their own safety to test their system.
Edit: Well, I guess I wasn’t super explicit with the previous post. Referring to the Apple Car I said that I would never consider a car that I couldn’t drive myself, which means that I don’t want a self-driving car. Then further down in the post, I said that I ruled out buying a Tesla because I don’t like the iPad-like screen, plus the fact that there is no screen directly in front of me, and the fact that turning off adaptable cruise control is not possible. So you calling me a Muskovite is pretty ridiculous. You seem very closed-minded vs I can see both sides.
Cars are personal statements with most of the profits generated by services. A perfect fit. AI is one part but Apple is great a materials science, UX, knowledge of batteries, online sales, and marketing. iPhone isn't unique by having apps or being able to place calls. And the car didn't need to be fully autonomous. It should just be smarter than Tesla, the charge connector shouldn't be as on the Apple Mouse, and the seat fabric shouldn't be FineWoven. How could Apple fail?
And "AI" is the next bubble waiting to burst. For important issues involving politics or public policy, we can't even agree on the same set of facts. Google's "artificial intelligence" couldn't even produce a picture of the Founding Fathers without introducing woke BS into the results.
I would also be worried that a forever $12,000 beta-product is eventually going to poke the ire of consumers or regulators or worst of all, the mass-tort legal firms for an over-promise and under-delivery fraud class action. Tesla has issues going forward.
That said EVs are becoming a low-margin commodity thanks to China. Apple made the right decision here. I think the European automakers and EU don’t know what is going to be hitting them in the next decade as these BYD EVs flood their market as they focus on smart phone app stores.
I think Apple will be able to salvage the work they did here by partnering with an legacy automotive company. I know it’s not the usual Apple thing but I think they will have something to offer and bring some value to the proposition.
I would also add that Toyota’s plans to not jump on the EV market but instead focus on plug-in hybrids seems like a brilliant idea in retrospect. If i had to buy today that is the way I would go. EVs had their own ecological nightmare issues-battery waste, wanton deep sea mining, on-land mineral mining in conflict zones, vehicle weight and tire wear (which contributes to environmental plastic burden) etc, coal for electricity generation. We just were not aware of them all.
Having worked in the German automotive sector, I know quite many people scouted by Apple.
They were chassis engineers, quality engineers etc. dealing with auto manufacturing components.
At that time, Apple was serious to make a car and convinced those classic engineers from my employer (My supervisor was contacted by Apple at that time as well).
Now, Apple gives up and all those hardware engineers, who made a huge decision to relocate their families and themselves from Germany to SV, are now what?
They may get higher salaries, higher compensations etc., but they came to realize highly motivated projects with a lot of challenges.
Apple occupies TTL over 160.000 employees and the number of those engineers is invisibly limited. Here, everybody is asking "so what?".
But it is so sad to see my former colleagues working there without..... realizing their dreams.
Contra to what you state, Tesla is not the leader in autonomous driving, and the current decision to leave out LIDAR sensors is going to keep Tesla from ever being the leader.
https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-sef-driving-not-in-top-ranked-autonomy-guidehouse-research-2023-3
Tesla is at level 2 autonomous driving, which many other car companies are at as well, but credit to Tesla for marketing FSD to the rubes for so many years as a beta. Would I be correct in stating that once you purchase FSD, it doesn't necessarily carry over to the next owner if it is ever sold? Tesla may/will allow the transfer to a new vehicle sale, but otherwise, true ownership of FSD is pretty murky.
Whatever, there are many EV's on the market today with superior values, so Tesla has pretty much plateaued and the margins have been decreasing.
Myself, I see EV's as mostly poor values against the leading hybrids, especially for pickups, where the Cybertruck is anything but competitive.
Have a nice day.
It boggles my mind why automakers seemingly want to do everything possible to diminish the “driving” part of driving a car from driving a car. Maybe it’s because they’ve seen all of the “drivers” on the road who devote 10% of their driving focus to kind-of driving their 2-3 ton ramming device they are sitting in while the other 90% is focused on their smartphone or other things they deem to be more important than the driving part.
I hate to generalize with statements like “most drivers are idiots” but finding evidence to the contrary is getting increasingly difficult. Will reliable autonomous vehicles save humanity from itself? Maybe, but I have my doubts.
Whatever helps you sleep at night. If you don't think the numerous people that have died behind the wheel of a Tesla with FSD activated weren't guinea pigs heading for the slaughter, you have a severe lack of clarity and ethical understanding.