“Apple doesn’t build a car. Not today, not tomorrow, not this year. Never. It doesn’t build a gasoline or diesel car. It doesn’t build an electric or nuclear powered car. It isn’t that.”
I wrote this in 2015 and it is as true today as it was then.
Has it spent potentially billions on research into the possibility, even launching Project Titan as the centerpiece of all its efforts? Yes, I did it. Did it even acquire at least one automotive tech company, Drive.AI, in 2019? YEP. But I’m not sure the heart of the company, or at least the heart of Apple CEO Tim Cook, was ever in it. Cook is too smart a man about supply chain and business processes to get caught up in the difficult task of building a large, mostly mechanical device to house a large-screen flipped iPhone.
According to the typically accurate Apple secret-digger Mark GurmanApple is shifting the Apple Car team’s efforts toward a clearer and more timely goal: generative AI.
Stuck
It is now accepted wisdom that Apple’s WWDC 2024 will be the springboard for Apple’s substantial new generative AI efforts. We expect to see an all-new Siri with generative AI powers in text, images and more that will rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT, DALL-E and Google Gemini.
The great thing about focusing on generative AI instead of an Apple Car is that Apple doesn’t have to introduce new hardware. Almost all the magic will be in the areas of software, machine learning and algorithms. Of course, we’ll eventually get a new iPhone 16 that will highlight these generative AI capabilities. But Apple is likely taking a breather from all its new product category efforts as it tries to engage the population with its new Vision Pro mixed reality headset.
Gurman’s report notes the issues surrounding the Apple car project, but this could be a misinterpretation of Project Titan. Sure, Apple spent a lot of money studying electric vehicles and autonomous driving, but was that all in service of a potential iCar or all so that Apple could build around what it saw as an important and growing market?
Backwards
The EV market has enjoyed it astronomical year-over-year growth since 2020and while there are hiccups (such as the poorly maintained EV charging infrastructure) the dedication to the category by manufacturers and government interest in it slowing climate change cannot be denied. This is a market opportunity for Apple. It could build more features into the iPhone to support these cars or further expand its CarPlay capabilities. Apple could even build after-market integrations for electric cars, or at least it could if it kept Project Titan alive.
Worth mentioning here – and something I’m sure Cook and Apple are fully aware of – is that growth for the EV market is a relative matter. The share of EV in the car market remains small; only 18% of all cars sold in 2023 were electric vehicles. With the exception of the new Vision Pro, Apple is in the business of selling products to millions, if not billions, of people. Maybe EV was just too small a market.
There’s also the possibility that Apple finally realized that it was taking too long to develop a viable semi-autonomous electric car and that the market had passed it by. That argument doesn’t hold water for me: Apple’s M.O. is to make a market grow, even appear to be flourishing, before it shows up and shows everyone how to do it (iPod, iPhone, iPad).
I think it’s more likely that Apple just kept discovering all the challenges unique to the auto industry. Even a company like Tesla, which seems to have worked them out and reshaped the industry in its image, takes years to reach critical mass. Now it is faces strong competition. I always believed that the shortest distance between Apple not having a car company and having one would have been for Apple to buy Telsa, but then it got too expensive… and its CEO and owner Elon Musk become too toxic.
Whatever the reason, it seems safe to assume that Apple’s car project is done and that the company’s attention will be fully focused on what it does best: improving our lives through hardware, software and highly lucrative services for home, mobile and work.
I tried to let you in 2015, 2017, and even in 2022, Apple won’t build an Apple Car. You don’t have to be surprised. Time to call a self-driving, all-electric Uber and move on.