Bloomberg reports that Apple has scaled back on its plans to build its first car dubbed Project Titan. Completely abandoning plans for its first car, the company has cut hundreds of jobs and reassigned hundreds of other employees from the car team to other tasks.
Apple has now refocused the team on developing an autonomous driving system. This will provide Apple with the option of partnering with existing carmakers and also provides it with the option of getting back to designing its own car. Apple has also added more employees to the team who will focus on the new goal of the team.
Executives within the Cupertino company have given the car team a deadline of late next year to prove how feasible their self-driving system is. Based on it, the company will be taking the final decision on the direction of the team.
The new shift and deadline come after months of strategy disagreements, leadership flux and supply chain challenges inside Apple’s unmarked car labs in Sunnyvale, California, a short drive from its Cupertino headquarters.
When Apple first started with Project Titan in 2014, the internal deadline for the company was 2020. The company hoped that it could revolutionize the car industry like it did with the original iPhone. However, since late 2015, the project has been hit with various roadblocks. This includes the project lead Steve Zadesky stepping down in early 2016 due to an “incredible failure of leadership.”
With Project Titan hitting so many roadblocks and going through some major changes, don’t expect Apple to show an autonomous driving system or a car by 2020.
[Via Bloomberg]