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APPLE CAR WAS A DISTRACTION
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 ordeal of putting a vehicle into production would have daunted even Tim Cook, for whom complex supply chains are a speciality.
The initial struggles of Tesla, and costly abandonments of other car projects, such as Dyson’s, would have always been front of mind – and slowing growth in the sector made pushing ahead an even bigger risk.
Indecision over the road the Apple Car should have taken seemed to be at the root of its problems. Leadership changes were frequent. Big-name former Tesla executive Doug Field joined Apple only to leave for Ford three years later.
Project Titan was a project troubled – an unkind take is that the company has thrown billions of dollars down the drain through mismanagement and a lack of clear vision.
Then again, Apple’s share price would rise handsomely whenever there was even a slither of news about the car’s existence – and it wouldn’t fall back when those rumours failed to materialise. Details of the project’s cancellation barely moved the company’s stock when reported on Tuesday (Feb 27).
Despite the news, there will always be, I suspect, rumours of an Apple Car being worked on somewhere in the bowels of Cupertino or some mystery location. Hazy details will be spoken about the same way we speculate about specimens at Area 51, or the whereabouts of Lord Lucan.
But any expectations that something would hit the road before the end of this decade have now been dashed. The Apple Car, sadly, is cancelled.
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