In what I’d say is another ‘sink in’ moment, Elon Musk has expressed his eulogy by citing a recent report suggesting Apple finally putting its plug on its Apple EV Car project.
Apple has been behind its electric car project for more than a decade. As per a Bloomberg report this Tuesday, the tech juggernaut is finally putting the project off the ventilator. In response, Tesla and SpaceX’s head honcho Elon Musk took it to X (formerly Twitter) to deliver his eulogy with two emojis – a saluting face and a burning cigarette. In a different post, Musk says that the car company is likely dead.
The current team size is around 2,000 people and it seems like Apple will move some of them to its generative artificial intelligence (AI) wing. The report hints at possible layoffs consisting of Apple’s engineers and car designers although that remains to be seen. According to The Verge, Kevin Lynch (VP in charge of the project) and Jeff Williams (COO) broke the news about the project’s discontinuation.
We have been hearing about Apple’s electric car for almost a decade now. We first heard about Project Titan aka Apple’s electric car in 2015. During that time, Apple hired some of the best talents from Tesla and Canoo. Last month, we heard Apple has driven 45,000 miles using its autonomous driving tech for test purposes. Next up, we heard that the launch has been postponed to 2028.
The project has since changed hands and was delayed due to leadership and other issues. In 2015, Musk said that he wasn’t threatened by Apple’s presence in the electric car market even though Apple was a trillion-dollar tech giant back then. He even compared electric cars to iPhone production since you cannot go to suppliers like Foxconn and ask them to build a car. There are a lot of complexities in the mix that need to be ironed out.
Of course, this EV project isn’t Apple’s first to go in the graveyard. A few days ago, we recapped a few Apple products that have landed in the graveyard with no possible signs of revival yet. It includes Apple Ring, Apple AR Smart Glasses, and AirPods with cameras and AI that you can read now.
It would make more sense if Apple diverted its attention to AI with the resources it has up its sleeves. Tech giants like MediaTek, Qualcomm, Samsung, and OpenAI among others are already investing tons in research and development and training their AI models. With that, Apple is likely to introduce its slew of AI features later this year although it remains to be seen.
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