Congratulations! You Have Achieved The Same Results As Apple’s 10-Year-Long EV Program Which They Just Shut Down

It finally happened! The day we all knew would come, thanks to nearly ten years of hard work and dedication by some of the absolute best people in the business. I’m talking about Apple finally giving up their program to build an electric (and possibly automated) car, which has been in progress since before 2015 and included nearly 2,000 employees. Like most of us, I had forgotten Apple was still doing this, but, more importantly, now that the project is finally at a close, we can make note of something truly remarkable that you, yes you, sexy reader, should be very proud of: you, with resources a mere fraction of what Apple brings to the table, with none of the money or expertise or time or anything, you have gone head-to-head with Apple and have arrived, after a full decade of effort has passed, at the same point: neither you nor Apple will be mass-producing an electric car. Think about that! You achieved the exact same result in the competitive electric car space as one of the biggest, most powerful companies in the world!

Apple has been extremely careful about not letting pretty much anything about their project, known as Project Titan internally, get out, so we really don’t have much of an idea about what they’ve been doing. I do remember that very early on in the project, around early 2016, they bought one car for the project, and the car they chose was one that actually gave me hope for what they were trying to achieve: an original, 1957 Fiat Multipla.

Yes, a Multipla! It was a great choice! Look:

Of course, nothing in the Apple car program ever seemed to reach old-school Fiat Multipla-levels of, well, anything. Except hype, of course. Oh, was there hype, and some of it was deeply stupid and even somewhat deceptive hype! Remember back in 2016 when Motor Trend pretended to have some major scoop about the Apple car, but in reality just had their own silly made-up renderings and some really long and boring videos about this fake car they’d made up and said was the Apple car? MT published the whole thing again back in 2020, because Reuters was saying that the Apple car would go into production this year, 2024! That was a Reuters exclusive, too, that thing that’s not happening!

Want to see a half-hour video of people (some very respected people, even!) talking about MotorTrend’s fake Apple car? For a half-hour? No, you probably don’t, but since I’m razzing our MT pals so much here, I should at least embed this video and kick them a few clicks, why not?

It’s the decent thing to do, after all.

And, of course, I’m no saint here, either; in 2015 I wrote a big speculative thing about what I thought the Apple car could be, which was a cargo-only automated delivery/pickup robot kind of thing:

It wasn’t that, either, because it’s nothing at all. Remember? The exact same thing that, again, you are personally doing! Not building an electric car! You and Apple, together, both achieving the same thing!

In so many ways, it’s incredible just how much attention and hype the Apple car got for years, despite nobody having any really clear idea what the car would be, what innovations it might bring to the table, or anything. Everyone was just basing this on the fact that Apple is a company renowned for its industrial design that makes consumer electronics products that are used and beloved all over the world. Apple’s product teams are considered some of the best user experience designers and developers in the world. So people thought that had to translate well to cars, even though the company had precisely zero experience making cars. The closest Apple ever came to making a car is likely that time they would sell you wheels for your Mac Pro:

Those wheels are seven hundred dollars. What? I can buy a 2005 Chrysler PT Cruiser for $700 and drive the damn computer around. $700 for some shopping cart casters, and we want these people to build a whole car? Fuck that.

Here’s the thing about Apple ending their Apple car program: it doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t matter because it never existed. To Apple’s credit, the people behind the brand themselves never overhyped anything, they never teased products that wouldn’t ever be realized, they never made claims about technology they didn’t have or released any half-baked automated vehicles onto public roads like several companies I could mention. They were just working on stuff, in secret, minding their own business.

There were clues about what was going on, of course. They hired Tesla’s Autopilot software guy, and the CEO of EV cabover truck makers, Canoo.

Really, though, all the overhyping nothing blame is ours. It was all of us journalists who got all excited and hyped up this non-existent Apple car because we all knew stories about the Apple car would get people to click. It’d be fun to say the Apple car was a huge, ridiculous boondoggle but the truth is I have no idea what the Apple car was. There’s been plenty of speculation about radical new battery tech and advanced autonomy features, but nothing official. I’d love to know more. In fact, if there are any Apple engineers or designers who want to let us know something about the project, let’s talk! I’m curious as hell as to what all those people were doing for all those years! And are they selling the Multipla?

For now, most of the Project Titan employees are being re-tasked to generative AI projects. If they had anyone actually working on physical, mechanical car systems, I’d expect those jobs would be the ones most likely to be laid off, since I bet a generative AI system doesn’t need a good steering rack or heat pump.

So, goodbye Apple car project. Since the project produced precisely nothing anyone outside of the company ever knew about, I think we won’t be sitting shiva for too long here. It’s like mourning a dog you had for ten years but never saw, touched, interacted with, or did anything with in any way, other than watching a half-hour video PetTrend made about what they thought your dog was probably like.

The Apple Vision Pro Could Be a Game Changer For Working On Your Car

Please Don’t Drive While Wearing an Apple Vision Headset Like These Attention-Seeking Goofballs

A Daydreaming Designer Images An iMac G3 Inspired 2001 Apple iCar

We’re The Only Car Site To Generate Member Perks On Genuine 40-Year Old Computers And Here’s Why That’s Cool