On February 28th, according to media reports, globally renowned technology journalist Mark Gurman released a powerful piece of news: Apple has decided to cancel its electric vehicle project, which has been ongoing for over a decade.
Apple disclosed this information internally on February 27th local time, which surprised nearly 2000 employees involved in the project. It is understood that many employees in the team responsible for automobiles will be transferred to the artificial intelligence department, and these employees will focus on generative artificial intelligence projects, which is an increasingly critical priority for the company.
Tesla CEO Musk rushed to the front line and responded with two emojis on social media: salute and light a cigarette.
In 2014, Apple launched the car project Titan Project and poached some employees from Tesla. According to media reports, over 1000 automotive experts and engineers gathered near Apple's headquarters to develop an electric vehicle with autonomous driving capabilities.
But the progress of the Apple car project was not smooth, with 200 layoffs in the autonomous driving project in early 2019. In addition, the original project leader of Apple's automotive industry was from Tesla, but was poached by traditional automotive giant Ford in 2021.
In January 2024, according to media reports, Apple had planned to launch a fully autonomous car, but in order to accelerate the project, it has now switched to developing an electric car with limited autonomous driving functions. The autonomous driving level of this car has been lowered to L2 level, and the expected release date has been postponed from the original plan of 2026 to the earliest official launch in 2028. If autonomous vehicle cannot be launched in 2028, Apple may "seriously reconsider the existence of this project".