Apple scraps its EV as the self-driving dream stalls and automakers shift gears
Fallin’ far from the tree… and rollin’ into a ditch. Apple is said to have axed its decade-long effort to build an iCar. It’s a whimper of an end to a multibillion-dollar project that started with a bang, promising to push Apple into a new product category. The dream: a pedal-less, steering-wheel-free self-driving EV. Now Apple’s reportedly planning to lay off some of the 2K people working on the vehicle and move others to AI teams. Apple’s plan soured as the market shifted:
Bite by bite… Apple had already pared back its vision. Most recently, the goal was said to be a more traditional EV with basic driver-assist tech.
In neutral: Tesla and GM-owned Cruise have failed to bring fully self-driving cars to the masses, too, and each has faced safety investigations. Cruise pulled its robotaxis off the road in October after one of its cars dragged a pedestrian.
Losing its luster… The two trends Apple was betting on for car success (self-driving + electric) have lost some shine. While EV sales grew 50%+ last year, the pace of electric growth is cooling, and carmakers have put billions of investments on ice. GM walked back its electric production targets, and Ford paused a planned $12B in EV-factory spending. Last month Hertz said it’d trim its EV fleet by 20K cars, citing slowing demand and high upkeep costs.
Sometimes you gotta eat the sunk cost… before it sinks you. Despite dumping billions of dollars and years of work into its car, Apple appears to have walked away. It’s following in the footsteps of other tech giants that’ve decided to cut their losses on big bets. Alphabet recently gutted its moonshots team, and Amazon shuttered a bunch of its cashierless Go stores.