Apple has shelved its autonomous electric car project. That means, hundred of employees working on the project will lose their jobs. Some employees from the special project group or SPG, out of the approximately 1,400 that are said to be still working on the project, will be moved to Apple’s generative AI projects, as reported by Bloomberg.
The electric car project had not been publicised and was mostly kept under wraps. However, 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 impacted employees, especially the hardware engineers and car designers have been given three months to get themselves moved to other suitable roles within Apple failing which they will have to leave the company.
The project was started as a new means of income for Apple at a time when sale of hardware had more or less stagnated. Once ready, the car was expected to be sold at a price of about $100,000.
Project Titan was the name given to the electric car project within the organisation. Almost 5,000 people were part of the project once, which was headed by Dough Field (who was once associated with Tesla and had moved on to join Ford).
