On Tuesday, Apple cut bait on the long-rumored but never-delivered electric vehicle project after about ten years of development. Elon Musk offered the following on X, "The natural state of a car company is dead."
Last month, the consumer electronic giant, with some $73 billion in cash as of December 2023, pushed the car's launch to 2028 and lowered autonomy expectations from Level 5 full self-driving down to Level 2, which tops out with adaptive cruise control.
According to multiple reports, layoffs are possible, particularly for engineers and automotive designers, but the company is moving several employees into the AI division, a market currently on a different trajectory than EVs.
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Some 2,000 employees were working on Project Titan until CEO Jeff Williams and VP Kevin Lynch reportedly told the team that the special projects group would be winding down.
So, just how hard is it to build a car company? Apple is valued at $2.81 trillion with a brain trust that included hitters from Ford, Tesla, BMW, Lamborghini and Porsche and yet the team failed to ever unveil a prototype.
Apparently, Apple's board became concerned that Titan would continue to hemorrhage hundreds of millions of dollars each year on a car that, at best, wouldn't debut for another four years.
