From Steve Jobs, Tesla or Mercedes to indecision and failure

Mark Gurman tells all about the secrets and history of the Apple Car, from Steve Jobs’ idea to its failure due to excessive expectations

The Apple Car has been canceled and Apple, at least in the short and medium term, will not launch any electric cars. However, the company has been working on this project for 10 years The history of the Apple Car hides many secrets, Mark Gurman has some very interesting and unpublished information about the history of how Apple wanted to build the car.

We’ve reviewed the history of Apple Car rumors, but Gurman reveals things we didn’t know until now, From talks with Tesla to testing batteries to the possibility of buying a McLaren.

The Apple Car was an idea of ​​Steve Jobs

Although known internally as “Project Titan”, officially began in 2014, Steve Jobs had considered designing and building his own car several years earlier., Tony Fadell, considered the father of the iPod, confirmed that he and Jobs had talked about “what the new Volkswagen Beetle of this generation would be.” However, the company’s focus was on creating the iPhone, so Jobs decided it was not the time to start the project.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, when American car companies were on the verge of failure, Apple’s CEO even floated the idea of ​​acquiring General Motors for just pennies on the dollar.

The Apple Car has failed and we’ll never see it on the roads

Apple considered partnering with or acquiring Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Ford, Volkswagen or McLaren

Given the difficulty of the project Apple thought it would be interesting Partner with or completely acquire a company, one of the first ideas was acquire tesla, which was one of the leading electric car companies in the market at the time. The deal was close, but Tim Cook ultimately decided not to acquire the company.

Apple considered acquiring Tesla. At the time, the electric carmaker’s success was far from certain, and it was worth less than $30 billion, or one twentieth of what it is today. Adrian Perica, Apple’s head of corporate development, held several meetings with Elon Musk. But Cook, who succeeded Jobs three years earlier, canceled the deal while negotiations were still in the early stages.

Tesla wasn’t the only brand Apple was considering partnering with. The report talks about Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Ford, Volkswagen, McLaren and other car manufacturers, It seems there was a very clear bet on Mercedes at this stage, although Apple ultimately decided to build the car itself.

Talks moved forward with Mercedes-Benz. For a few months, Apple and the German automaker were actively working on a partnership similar to Tesla’s idea, but with one change. Mercedes will make Apple vehicles, as well as sell its own cars with Apple’s self-driving platform and user interface. People involved in the failed deal say Apple ultimately backed out because early work had convinced its executives that they could build a car on their own.

Optimism towards the project and the first prototype

When Apple decided to design its own electric car, it did so with great enthusiasm and optimism, and was determined to offer the best car possible. He The first prototype of the Apple Car was ready in 2020 And it had a strange design, a sort of circular minivan.

The prototype, a white minivan with rounded sides, a glass roof, sliding doors and white tires, was designed to seat four people comfortably and was inspired by the classic Volkswagen microbus. The design was always referred to inside Apple, not affectionately, as “bread loaf”. The plan was for the vehicle to hit the market about five years later with a giant screen, a powerful audio system and windows that adjusted for their own tint. The cabin will have club seating like that of a private aircraft and passengers can convert some seats into recliners and footrests.

Conceptual image of Apple Car

from the beginning The Apple Car was designed to have a Level 5 autonomous driving system, meaning it will be completely autonomous, without a steering wheel or pedals. The only manual controls will be a “video game-style controller or iPhone app.” It confronted those responsible for the project, who had suggested Level 3 autonomous driving, with Apple executives.

Disappointment with the project

The lofty ambitions of autonomous driving left many people disappointed with the project. Apple didn’t test any prototypes on the road and skepticism began to creep in. The report said that several Apple executives felt frustrated by Cook’s indecision About the direction of “Project Titan”.

But Apple never came close to realizing its original vision, or any of its subsequent ones. They did not test the full-scale prototype on public roads. The reason this hasn’t happened is due in part to the enormous technical difficulty of its autonomous driving goals, as well as the punishing economics of the car manufacturing business.

The Apple Car has failed after several years of development

end of apple car

Last year designers and engineers decided to conduct an experiment Level 2 autonomous car, similar to what Tesla and many other manufacturers offer, But this would make the Apple Car similar to any other electric car already available in the market. Given the development situation, Apple decided to end the Apple Car as early as 2024.

Apple’s director of operations, Jeff Williams, and head of Apple Car, Kevin Lynch, were responsible for announcing the project’s cancellation to employees:

The meeting lasted for about 12 minutes. Both men thanked employees for their work and directly addressed the restructuring and layoffs. Some employees will immediately move to Apple’s AI division and others will move into software engineering. However, a portion of the team was immediately left without work. Hardware engineers will have the opportunity to apply for positions in other groups, but there are not spots for everyone. Other employees, such as hundreds of automotive-specific engineers, test track technicians, autonomous car testers and automotive safety experts, received emails with their severance packages. As far as the Arizona track is concerned, Apple is already working on selling it.

Kevin Lynch informed Apple leaders about Apple It will take at least another decade to build a fully autonomous carDue to which the company had to close the project. Apple spends about a billion dollars per year In the Apple Car project, and part of that was that they didn’t want to continue investing that much money.