Apple is abandoning its decade-long effort to construct an electric car in favor of ramping up efforts on its generative AI projects, according to a report.
Apple announced the plans internally on Tuesday, sources told Bloomberg, rattling its nearly 2,000 staffers working on the self-driving vehicle, which was initially intended to launch sometime in 2026.
The choice was shared by Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams and Kevin Lynch, a vp overseeing the trouble, the people told Bloomberg, asking not to be identified when discussing private matters.
The 2 Apple executives told staffers that because the Cupertino, Calif.-based company winds down the team working on the car — known internally because the Special Projects Group, or SPG — some might be shifted to the unreal intelligence division.
These staffers will now focus on generative AI projects under executive John Giannandrea, according to Bloomberg, as Apple looks to stand up to speed to rivals Microsoft, which has a $10 billion multiyear agreement with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Google — though the tech giant is currently in hot water over its “woke” Gemini text-to-image software.
Tons of of others within the SPG — lots of that are hardware engineers and car designers — can either apply for an additional job inside Apple or might be laid off.
It’s unclear what number of might be axed.
Representatives for Apple didn’t immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The choice to ditch Project Titan kicked off in 2014 with the goal of making fully self-driving vehicles with luxurious interiors and voice-guided navigation, according to Bloomberg.
Nevertheless, Project Titan has struggled nearly from its inception. When Apple executed test drives around tis Silicon Valley headquarters in 2022, it had trouble navigating streets — when it incessantly bumped into curbs, veered out of lanes and into the center of intersections and even nearly hit a jogger.
A revolving door of departing executives had also plagued this system.
Williams and Lynch took over the undertaking just a few years ago following the departure of Doug Field, now a senior executive at Ford, according to Bloomberg.
Ian Goodfellow, a renowned scientist who headed the machine-learning division inside Project Titan, also left the corporate back in 2022.
Apple’s self-driving car was originally intended to differ from those being developed by rivals resembling Google-backed Waymo and General Motors’ Cruise since it could have no steering wheel and pedals, with interiors designed around hands-off driving.
Troubles along the best way had it reduce its ambitious plans — by adding a steering wheel and pedals — and delay its launch from 2025 to 2026, though it was still anticipted to tout a $100,000 price tag.
Meanwhile, Apple released its long-awaited Vision Pro earlier this month for a sticker-shocking $3,500, though customers were reportedly returning the virtual reality headset just weeks after purchasing it.
Greater than 200,000 pairs of the groundbreaking goggles were sold during pre-order before being released to the general public on Feb. 2.
But while some frenzied fans say the Vision Pro will revolutionize the tech industry, other peeved purchasers are already returning theirs to the Apple Store, citing extreme headaches, nauseousness, motion sickness and “eye fatigue.”