Apple Kills Electric Car Project, Will Shift Many Staffers to Generative AI: Report

variety.com:

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Apple has nixed its plans to build an electric vehicle — a project that had been in the works at the tech giant for a decade, according to a new report.

Bloomberg, citing anonymous sources, reported Apple’s decision to wind down the EV project, code-named Project Titan. In a surprise announcement, Apple COO Jeff Williams and Kevin Lynch, the VP overseeing the project, on Tuesday informed the nearly 2,000 employees who were working on the project that it would be scrapped, per the report.

Layoffs are expected on the team that was building Apple’s EV. Many of the staffers who were working on Apple’s electric vehicle will be “shifted to the artificial intelligence division” under John Giannandrea, senior VP of machine learning and AI strategy, according to the Bloomberg report.

Reps for Apple didn’t respond to a request for comment. Apple had “imagined the car being priced at around $100,000” and had tentatively planned for a 2028 launch, but executives at the tech giant “were concerned about the vehicle being able to provide the profit margins that Apple typically enjoys on its products,” per Bloomberg.