Apple Kills "iCar" Electric Vehicle Project

• In what was known internally as "Project Titan," Apple planned to build a self-driving electric car.
• Initial goals were for an autonomous vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals.
• Apple recently said it was delaying production and scaling down self-driving tech.
• The roughly decade-long Project Titan is believed to have cost billions of dollars.

Apple is officially out of the electric car business. Over the last decade, the tech giant quietly cultivated its ambitious plan to introduce its own internally developed, fully self-driving electric vehicle. The research and engineering involved in the program known internally as Project Titan is believed to have cost Apple billions of dollars.

The auto industry, and undoubtedly countless Apple fans, were eagerly awaiting to see how the vehicle — dubbed by some as the "iCar" — might revolutionize transportation, much like the iPhone upended the realm of mobile phones when it debuted in 2007. This Apple-led mobility revolution is now in the equivalent of "HTTP error 404" mode, so to speak.

News of Apple's abandonment of its electric vehicle was first reported by Bloomberg, which mentioned approximately 2,000 employees participated in bringing this most mobile of Apple products to fruition. For the moment, Apple has not officially stated how many workers will be transferred to other projects or how many might face termination.

The core of Apple's EV problems

The news comes as a surprise to many, partly due to Apple's seemingly near-limitess reserves of cash — last year this was estimated to be in the region of $160 billion. However, electric cars are an expensive proposition, made even more so when the goal is to build and develop one completely free of any human driving input. The proposed vehicle would not sport pedals or a steering wheel.

Ironically, only about one month before Titan's cancellation, Apple stated it was ready to push back production and scale back the vehicle's self-drive capability. The vehicle, expected to cost around $100,000, would have what's known as Level 2.5 autonomy. This still requires the driver to pay attention, though it allows a degree of hands-free operation (most often limited to premapped sections of highway in the vehicle's navigation system). Current examples of Level 2.5 driving aids include GM's Super Cruise, Ford's BlueCruise and Tesla's erroneously named Full Self-Driving.

The hype of self-drive

As many automakers and tech firms have discovered, the idea of an autonomous vehicle is much easier to dream of that actually implement in day-to-day driving. GM-owned Cruise, an autonomous taxi service spearheading the automaker's push into self-driving EVs, was found to have withheld crash reports from California regulators. The company's CEO resigned in late 2023 as these revelations were discovered. Accidents involving self-drive vehicles from the likes of Waymo (Alphabet/Google's autonomous drive firm) and Uber have also made national headlines.

Tesla Motors was recently forced to recall more than 2 million vehicles due to concerns about its Autopilot system. This came after a two-year investigation by the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration that centered around determining Autopilot's involvement in a series of crashes. The fix involves an over-the-air software update that produces more warnings when the vehicle detects a driver isn't paying attention.

The Autopilot name itself has come in for criticism, as it suggests a Tesla vehicle can drive completely free of driver input — for the record, Autopilot is a not a hands-free system but it can be used on city streets. During a recent comparison of semi-autonomous driver aids, Edmunds found Autopilot impressive in highway operation, but operating in city traffic could be a harrowing experience.

Edmunds says

The Apple "iCar" has gone to the automotive graveyard. The fact that hugely lucrative Apple has thrown in the towel on building a fully self-driving EV doesn't bode well for the technology's short- and medium-term future.