So Long, Apple Car, We’ll Never Know What We Missed
What could Apple have done with the humble automobile?
Ideas, some credible and others less so, have dripped out for a decade. For a time, the company was rumored to be working on something small based on BMW's i3. Then it was said to actually be a van. With augmented reality, a new kind of battery and smart seat belts.
Reports suggested a desire to leapfrog Tesla and go straight to full self-driving — and it was granted permission to test its technology on California roads. It was looking at building charging infrastructure. So insatiable was the appetite for any news on the car, Apple watchers had started to pay attention to the kinds of vehicles bought by Apple executives to see whether there were any signs as to their tastes and the project's probable direction.
My favorite report of all was that Apple had looked into a deal with the legendary motor group McLaren, signaling the Apple car might one day be a true supercar. A British one, no less. I could just picture it making its debut in a Bond movie: a tuxedoed Daniel Craig flirting with Siri to open the door to let him out.
Alas, we'll never know what could have been. Apple's decision to scrap its car project, according to reporting from Bloomberg News' Mark Gurman, brings everyone's favorite Silicon Valley rumor to an anti-climatic but sadly predictable end. Apple's presence on our roads will remain limited to CarPlay, its in-car software. Some of the company's 2,000 workers on the project — named Titan — will be reassigned to work on artificial intelligence, Gurman wrote. Others will have to apply for other positions; some will be laid off.
In this era of cost-cutting across the tech business, the Apple Car was a distraction that could no longer be justified, not when the needs of AI must take priority, with Apple seen as a laggard. Indeed, that Apple should bother making a car was always a difficult sell at the best of times. The large margins it enjoys on its hardware could not possibly be replicated, and the
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