For the last decade, many Apple employees working on the company’s secretive “Project Titan” electric vehicle project called it “The Titanic Disaster.” (We’d have gone with “Project Titanic.”) Amidst the layoffs, constant staffing and goal changes, and a general stench of failure permeating the effort, they knew the project was doomed to fail, The New York Times reported late last month. Bloomberg News‘ Mark Gurman calls the Apple Car cancelation “a massive disappointment that will alter the course of the company’s history, perhaps for decades to come.”
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
Around 2014, Apple Inc. had a plan that would diversify revenue and chart a future beyond the iPhone in one full swoop: an electric vehicle.
But as I detailed this past week in a Bloomberg Businessweek feature about Apple’s car efforts, the project was almost immediately hobbled by indecision and disagreement, technological challenges, and the cold hard realities of the automotive sector.
Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook and other executives disagreed on what strategy to pursue, including whether to build a car at all, but also on minutia — like the individual gizmos in the car interior. A major point of contention was what level of autonomy to give the car. The scale ranges from 0 to 5, and Apple’s goals shifted several times throughout the project. At the same time, prospects for the overall EV market dimmed.
Against that backdrop, scrapping Apple’s car project wasn’t a mistake, especially since it frees up resources to focus on new generative AI features. But it’s still a massive disappointment that will alter the course of the company’s history, perhaps for decades to come.
Without a car on the horizon, there’s no shiny new thing for Apple investors, employees and customers to get excited about — at least not at the scale of an EV. There isn’t another category that could increase Apple revenue the way a car can.
MacDailyNews Take: This is not the only project inside Apple that’s wracked with indecision, disagreement, and waste. This is not an anomaly, it’s closer to the norm.
What if a major company had a CEO who was out of his depth, but who could look wildly successful for a decade simply by building out the company’s retail chain that his predecessor devised and iterating/not screwing up products that, again, his predecessor devised?
What would happen when real vision was finally required, but the company was hamstrung with an indecisive, myopic CEO with a seemingly unending list of misplaced priorities?
A fish rots from the head down.
See also:
• Apple CEO Tim Cook faces significant employee unrest – September 20, 2021
• New book: ‘After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul’ – February 1, 2022
• Work on Apple Vision Pro began under Steve Jobs – August 23, 2023
• Microsoft, not Tim Cook’s Apple, is now the most valuable company ever – February 9, 2024
• Contrary to popular belief, Steve Jobs knew about Apple Watch – February 13, 2023
• Apple’s biggest risk: Not innovating like it used to under Steve Jobs – February 14, 2024
• How an indecisive Tim Cook blew $1 billion a year on a vehicle Apple never built – March 6, 2024
• Nvidia primed to overtake Apple as world’s second-most-valuable company – March 8, 2024
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Hey, at least Apple planted some mangroves in India in Tim Cook’s latest sop to “climate change,” i.e. cover story for a socialist global wealth redistribution scam.
Cook is either too stupid to see the con or he’s in on it.
Clearly Cook squeezed out the Apple Vision Pro (against internal pushback) so he could create a wake wherein he could sink the Titan. I agree that there’s not much to look forward to, for the first time in a long time. Supposedly a foldable MacBook/iPad may come next year or 2026, but I’m ambivalent about whether that product is necessary or desired. I don’t really trust Apple to do good work with Generative AI. It hasn’t been in their dna. Look at how they hamstrung Siri, who couldn’t even tell me what date the Oscars would air when I asked it two weeks ago. Apple likes to make decisions FOR you. They don’t do well when they’re offering you options. I’m less worried about the stock, which should careen forward on momentum for a decades, than I am about losing Tech workers who enjoy making dreams a reality.
Vision Pro will fail. People are just not stupid enough to put on those stupid looking, overpriced underwater diving goggles and think that’s cool at home. People don’t have that kind of money to throw away on top of the required laptop, phone and and whatever else. And Apple ever getting into the automobile business was as dumb as it could ever get … what the hell does Cook think he is doing when he isn’t trying to plant software in our phones that report back to him our photos. Idiot.
I did the 30 minute demo on the Vision Pro. Very cool tech, but zero usefullness.
Does not do a single usefull thing that existing tech doesnt do better.
The decade of stock momentum you’re talking about has passed. An iPhone isn’t like soda or toothpaste that you can keep raking in money off of for a century. The news of Project Titan’s cancellation is less disturbing than the details of its progress. Were they really that insane to think they could LAUNCH a car with level 5 autonomy? Tesla is currently at level 2 and they have hundreds of millions of user driven mile data and have two decades of experience in this area under their belt.
I’m now extremely skeptical of the leadership capabilities of Cook and his lieutenants for their dithering. Isn’t Cook about to retire? Who’s going to be left holding the bag? Will there even be anything left inside?
In 2014 it wasn’t clear how hard self driving would be.
When it was first leaked of a car without steering, my initial thought posted here was that such a car could not navigate a crowded grocery store parking lot … for the foreseeable future.
And it took Cook an embarrassing 11 years and $10 Billion blown to figure that out?…
What an wast the whole car thing was. Imagine if all those billions had been spent on Mac, iPhone, macOS and iOS. Imagine especially if they’d been developing generative AI tools. Instead they look as off they were caught completely by surprise at how far the science had come. Imagine if they’d been working to attract the best people instead of worrying about skin color and gender.
Steve would’ve got it done.
I doubt ‘Steve’ would have started the project in the first place. He learned how to say ‘No’ to projects that might appear interesting, but weren’t central to Apple’s mission.
Cancelling the project was the best possible outcome.
How do you know Steve didn’t start it? Steve was famous for actually working on and planning products 10 years out. If he put his mind to it and all that R&D money, Steve WOULD HAVE GOT IT DONE!…
I believe this is unfair. Tim Cook was very personally involved in all the Apple (PRODUCT)RED innovations. These have changed the world in so many ways. And there is the new MRNA based Fine Woven Non Leather Eco Friendly Global Warming Carbon Neutral Watchbands. And you can get them in Rainbow themes or Apple (PRODUCT)RED.
And, Cook is contemplating the revolutionary change of the Ear Pod/Air Pods color white to: _______ (to be confirmed at upcoming Town Hall event). He is expected to ask for forgiveness to have let “whiteness” have such a long run in this critical Apple product. Also, 98% recycled. A first at this level.
Steve Jobs one time said something like that it was also important for Apple to know when not to come out with a certain product. The Apple car could be that. It could have been a failure and if so, it could have been disastrous for Apple. So maybe it is for the better that Apple decided to bury the Titan project. And who knows, what Apple learned from it, could still be beneficial for other projects.
Anyone who hasn’t read the Bloomberg article cited above is blowing hot air. True, Apple shouldn’t release products that aren’t awesome, but it shouldn’t take a DECADE to figure that out. The portrait painted of Tim Cook’s pathetic leadership on this project is astounding and it absolutely applies to everything else Apple is doing or not doing. He has run his course as CEO, as a shareholder I have no confidence left in him. There’s no reason to believe Apple will do anything to catch up to Microsoft this year or next. Microsoft!!@#
I don’t get the bitterness from MDN. They tried to make an amazing car, and they couldn’t do it, and they didn’t talk about the car in public. They didn’t want to make a F’n Tesla, so they’re focusing on more interesting projects.
I repeat “They didn’t want to make a F’n Tesla”
Some idiots on this board seem to think having 300 cars that all looks the same and don’t have self driving is an awesome market for Apple. It isn’t.
Focus on what you’re good at.
MDN’s take SAYS IT ALL!
Apple led by an Uber Liberal CEO with extreme beliefs, Cook is not open to REALITY in a rapidly changing business environment. What we have have learned recently culminates with decisions in the past just how BAD Cook is at his job.
~ Wasting over $10 Billion R&D dollars on Project Titanic with NOTHING to show for it.
~ Pipeline was a LIE, it was always dry.
~ Cook thought he knew better than Steve and did not heed his advice by keeping the company neutral and OUT of partisan politics.
~ Rapidly CAPITULATES to communist government and EU demands.
~ Products releases FOLLOW and do not lead, the me-too syndrome and are often buggy and take several iterations to compete.
~ Prices STILL way too high when you compare spec by spec to competitors.
~ Locking down computers from future upgrades by soldering boards the stupidest TATIC to make more money as veteran users fled to PCs in droves.
~ Turning Apple into a leftist HOLLYWOOD factory while neglecting to remake SIRI, Apple TV and other products into gold standards.
Difficult to grasp how a hollow vessel CEO blowing $10 billion is not shown the door with a golden parachute…
Game console? Maybe after two decades?
Tim Cook is a manager, not a visionary. Apple’s next CEO needs to be a visionary that can motivate small groups of people to take and accomplish big moves.
For the car, Apple had thought full autonomous would be their “leap-frog” position to jump in late to the game… When that was found to be crazy hard, they had no leapfrog position while company after company were rolling out EVs.
Apple also had no end-goal of spec. It kept changing. The same was beginning to happen from engineering pushback with Apple Vision Pro. Tim – thankfully – made the right call, put a launch date and said we are launching, get it ready!…
But no vision for the car, no end-date, no set feature set, just forever project creep.
TODAY: EV battery nirvana of lower and lower and forever lower prices never materialized. Toyota and Hyundai both are finally speaking out saying there isn’t enough material in the world to make EV’s long-term or every vehicle. price will never happen, materials, unless we strip mine the planet to death. It’s not happening…
As a result of battery prices not falling through the floor, EV’s were stuck in luxury price ranges. Sales are slowing. Granted, the sales growth of EV’s, the YOY sales of them is still growing, but the rate of growth is slowing rapidly so.
Worst of all, only so many people can afford $50k+ vehicle prices, and only Tesla (that I am aware of, maybe China’s BYD – but who knows with the CCP and subsidizing companies), is making money at this.
The last straw is seeing how Tesla is playing this game. Every savings they are picking up in newer battery tech and economies of scale, they are not pocketing. Rather they just continue to lower prices. 6-8 times last year Tesla lowered prices and they are likely to share off $3k or more this year off the average vehicle sales….
As a result, competitors are having to slash prices while their sales are slowing… Ford is lowing $37,000 per EV sold! Per EV sold, and while Farley puts on a brave face and re-adjusts when the believe they can make a profit, it’s probably a facade to “maybe never and we may be out of this game.”
Everyone else is getting squeezed by Tesla. Losing money. Slowing EV sales.
Does that REMOTELY sound like a business Apple would want to get into? Not. Even. Close…
Apple CAN get back into the vehicle industry again, but it will require new leadership and just something in that L3 range autonomous support solution.
HOWEVER
It will not be an EV or ICE vehicle. If Apple wants to time a leapfrog event in the vehicle market, they do EXACTLY what Tesla did, and where Toyota is quietly but more and more picking up speed…
Hydrogen.
Apple has the resources to do what Telsa did:
– Build out their own Hydrogen network across the country. They could partner with Costco, and make it so Apple customers get a discount on fueling there while others can fuel with the same standard also. Or, do it themselves, or augment this solution with their own stations elsewhere across the country filling gaps.
– Build their own Hydrogen platform cars. Water is the output where a traditional ICE engine or fuel cell design (basically creating electricity for the car is really an EV).
Either way, this is the leapfrog event, which Apple can re-introduce itself to the vehicle space, bringing with them all the tech they’ve amassed in-house to build a vehicle en mass.
Apple could get right back in the electric car business by purchasing Rivian. They then could merge the technology they developed with Rivian. They also did not fall into the sunk cost fallacy, which has been missed by many.