After 10 years of work, “Apple” abandons its electric car manufacturing project
Apple has decided to abandon its ambitions in manufacturing an electric car, thus ending a project that has seen several fluctuations over the past ten years, according to Agence France-Presse.
The source explained that around two thousand employees at the company manufacturing “iPhone” phones were working on this project, which the company kept secretive, according to Bloomberg, which was the first media outlet to report the information from undisclosed sources.
A large portion of these employees will now be reassigned to design and deploy tools related to generative artificial intelligence.
This decision represents a setback for the company, according to Bloomberg, because the project’s value was “billions of dollars” and “was supposed to introduce Apple to a new sector.”
Apple began working on manufacturing an electric car in 2014, hoping to design a fully autonomous electric car equipped with a voice-operated navigation system.
Analyst Dan Ives from Wedbush stated: “The decision is a ‘limited disappointment’ as with allocating two thousand employees to the project in Cupertino (the company’s headquarters), Apple Car was still expected in the medium term.”
On the other hand, he saw the decision also meaning that Apple “is focusing on accelerating and implementing a broad strategy related to artificial intelligence within its framework, which is a correct decision for the company in the future.”
Apple has never publicly acknowledged working on creating a self-driving car without a control wheel, although the media has leaked this information for years.
The company did not respond when Agence France-Presse attempted to contact them.
