No Apple Car: According to insider information, “Project Titan” will be canceled

According to insider information, Apple is giving up “Project Titan”, which has been running for a decade. This means that the iPhone manufacturer is scrapping research into its own car. Some of the 2.000 employees in the automotive sector are to move to the AI ​​department. What will become of the rest is not yet clear. There were reports about this a month agothat Apple needs to scale down its ambitions regarding autonomous driving. Instead of a level 5 (completely autonomous) or level 4 (only a few interventions), you should work towards level 2+ (partially automated assistance). This would probably have left Apple uncompetitive.

The decision is said to have been communicated by Jeff Williams and Kevin Lynch

Jeff Williams is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Apple and, among other things, he leads the design team as well as the software and hardware department of the Apple Watch. Kevin Lynch is Apple's Vice President of Technology and was responsible, among other things, for the initial development of the Apple Watch. The two are supposed to be in the project Titan As of today, Tuesday, February 27, 2024, employed employees have conveyed the news that car development will now be scaled back piecemeal and ultimately abandoned.

According to sources citing internal insiders, the two bosses are said to have told the Auto team that “many” of them can move into the AI ​​area. But there are no exact numbers yet. The AI ​​division is led by John Giannandrea, who is Apple's vice president. John Giannandrea has been at Apple since 2018 and previously worked at Google for eight years, including in the area of ​​machine intelligence. As part of Apple's current efforts to catch up with the AI ​​competition, it could certainly use some extra hands (and smart minds).

Priorities are set differently: generative AI instead of autonomous driving

In the last ten years, a lot has changed for Apple and its position in the technology market. After work on Project Titan and thus on the plans for an autonomous Apple car began around 2014, the development of the Apple Vision Pro followed just a few years later. Because now they also wanted to play in the AR or VR area.

The Vision Pro is now in its first version brought on the market, but in the final stretch of their development, Apple faced another new aspect of the ever-changing world of technology: generative AI. After the boom in this area in 2022 and 2023, a quick reaction had to be made. It is believed that Apple will address the AI ​​content of iOS 24 and macOS 18 at WWDC15 in June.

But the work will not be completely done yet. Apple must now keep its focus on generative AI as a market area that can be operated quickly. Project Titan, which had been running on the side for a decade and was not yet going in any specific direction, probably got in the way in the end. Finally, as mentioned at the beginning, there was supposed to be pressure from the board to finally show results. Hence the downgrade of the autonomy plans for the car. 

Now it seems that the final insight has been reached regarding this. An Apple car with help to keep in lane, driving assistance in traffic jams and parking assistance would hardly stand out from the competition. Due to the long development time and the proprietary system design, the price (rumored to be $100.000) would also be far too high. So another product that would go the limited route of the Vision Pro. It is understandable that the ripcord was pulled here – also, but not only, because of AI development.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

Johannes Domke

After graduating from high school, Johannes completed an apprenticeship as a business assistant specializing in foreign languages. But then he decided to research and write, which resulted in his independence. For several years he has been working for Sir Apfelot, among others. His articles include product introductions, news, manuals, video games, consoles, and more. He follows Apple keynotes live via stream.