In February, Apple had decided to shelve its autonomous electric car project. Therefore, employees working on the project were already bracing for loss of jobs. At the time it was reported that some employees from the special project group or SPG, out of the approximately 1,400 that were still working on the project, would be moved to Apple’s generative AI projects.
As per the latest report by Bloomberg, over 600 employees have been rendered jobless in California after Apple closed its car and smartwatch display projects. The number was revealed in the filings with the California Employment Development Department.
While The electric car project had not been publicised and was mostly kept under wraps, it had eaten up a lot of resources over the past ten years or so, which had begun to worry senior executives. Additionally, the leadership of the team as well as its strategies had undergone many changes over time. The display project was experiencing many challenges in terms of costs, engineering issues and supplier matters.
In February itself, the impacted employees, mainly comprising hardware engineers and car designers were given three months to get themselves moved to other suitable roles within Apple failing which they were told that they would have to leave the company.
It is reported that about 371 people were let go at the primary car project office in Santa Clara, California. There was a ripple effect in the satellite offices too.
As was revealed in February, some team members were reassigned to other teams, including those working on the artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics projects.
