Tim Cook, CEO of Apple. Correctly predicted the electric vehicle revolution but failed to build the product he planned/GettyImages
The expectations were enormous: in the autonomous capabilities, in the interface with the driver, in the design and technology.
After all, if the company that invented the smartphone, tablet and paid music services is going to build its own electric car, it has to be another winning product.
But today Apple put an end to the rumors.
The Bloomberg agency reported that its chief operating officer, Jeff Williams, and Kevin Lynch, the vice president in charge of the project, informed its approximately 2,000 employees of its cancellation. The executives said that the resources invested so far in the project will now be directed to the field of artificial intelligence. The
electric car project The company has been managed under the code name "Titan" since 2017 and at its peak employed about 5,000 people. Apple recruited senior executives from the development departments of major car manufacturers, and held talks with others about the possibility of producing the vehicle it is developing for it, just as it does not produce the iPhone itself
.
We will always have Apple CarPlay/Zahav.ru
But the years passed, Tesla and BYD became huge companies, every day another brand of Chinese electric cars was born, and only Titan continued to travel in laboratories, or as camouflaged test vehicles that, according to estimates, have already traveled 45 thousand km.
The executives did not explain the reasons for stopping the project, but it is possible To estimate that the cooling in recent months in the sale of electric vehicles in the world, due to their high prices and lack of charging stations, the realization that the creation of a true autonomous vehicle is still far away, and the progress of the Chinese manufacturers led Apple CEO Tim Cook to the decision to press the brakes.
Nine years ago, in a speech he gave, he sounded different: "It looks like there's going to be a massive change in this industry, a massive change. You can't agree with that. We'll see what we do in the future. I do think the industry is at a tipping point for a massive change. The modern descendants of the Ford Model T will be shocked down to the chassis, due to the growing importance of software in the car of the future, the rise of autonomous vehicles and the transition from an internal combustion engine to electrification."
All this did happen, but Apple's part in the revolution will come down to CarPlay.
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