Apple car is driving nowhere, as “hundreds” of staff get let go

Apple car is driving nowhere as it seems as though the technology giant have ditched plans to build the Apple car.

Bloomberg reports that Project Titan, the company’s car initiative, has seen “hundreds” of staff lost as Apple’s ambitious car project is in danger of being cut.

Project Titan has reportedly been given a deadline in late 2017 under its new leadership before the company decides whether the project is working or worth pursuing further.  However, the company could decide to revisit building its own car if they decide to scrap the project.

It is a likely option that Apple could decide to develop self-driving software for existing carmakers to use.

The Bloomberg report written by Mark Gurman and Alex Webb described Project Titan as “an incredible failure of leadership” and later added: “New leadership of the initiative, known as Project Titan, has re-focused on developing an autonomous driving system that gives Apple flexibility to either partner with existing carmakers, or return to designing its own vehicle in the future.”

Earlier in the year Apple hired Chris Porritt, former Vice President of Vehicle Engineering at Tesla, to oversee what it calls ‘special projects.’ While at Tesla, Portitt worked on the brand’s latest models – the Model S, Model X and Model 3.

In 2014, when the car project was started, one clear aim for the company was to help Apple retain key engineering talent who may have been more excited by a new project rather than shipping incremental improvements to existing products. But if hardware engineers are leaving the company, or being assigned elsewhere, then Project Titan has already failed at one of its key objectives.

Reports in the German press stated that Apple and a few car manufacturers were unable to come to an agreement about who would own the data about customers’ driving, with Apple adamant that it would build its own cloud infrastructure for the project.

However, it was reported earlier this week that Apple car could be manufactured in Austria at the Magna Steyr plant, which has built BMW and MINI vehicles on contract for many years.