ALBAWABA – A decade after it kicked off development for an electric vehicle, Apple has reportedly shut down its highly anticipated Apple Car project, known internally as Project Titan, as executives switch focus towards Generative Artificial Intelligence amid declining global demand in the EV market.
Reuters reported back in 2020 that Apple plans to ship its car sometime between 2024 and 2025, however, sources familiar with the project told the agency that the tech giant has put the project down, with Bloomberg reporting that several employees are being shifted towards Apple’s AI division to catch up with rivals like Google and OpenAI.
In a meeting that took less than 15 minutes, Bloomberg writes that Apple’s Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams and Head of Titan project Kevin Lynch informed around 2,000 employees working on the project about the halt, a decision taken after months of harsh deliberations between the company’s board and senior management regarding the best course of action.
While the Apple Car itself was an AI challenge as the iPhone maker made an effort to create an artificial intelligence system capable of enabling complete autonomous driving, both in terms of power and energy efficiency, it seems that slow demand for EVs caused by high interest rates and inflation which drove Tesla and other carmakers to retreat investments also affected Apple’s decision as reported by Reuters.
Despite reports from Bloomberg that for Apple to compete effectively in the AI market, it would take years as the company’s tight privacy policies might hinder its AI progression, investors have welcomed the decision with share price surging 0.81 percent, Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Anurag Rana and Andrew Girard said that allocating resources to generative AI is the smart move, considering the long-term economic potential of AI income streams compared to automobiles.
