Photo: tedoradze.giorgi via Instagram
Apple abandoned the Apple Car after approximately one decade of work and over $10 billion spent on a project that was supposed to take the automotive space by surprise.
With Apple still sitting on a money-making machine thanks to the thousands of patents and technology it created for the vehicle, most people in the industry see different reasons for the tech giant to abandon its ambitious automotive expansion.
Carlos Ghosn, the former Nissan CEO and now a fugitive in Lebanon, believes Apple ditched the Apple Car for a different reason: the company understood it wouldn't make as much money as it initially believed.
Many experts and representatives of automakers believe Apple abandoned the car project because it couldn't get it right. The reasoning makes sense. Apple doesn't have the know-how to build a car, and after failed negotiations with Mercedes, Hyundai, and other traditional carmakers, it decided to build everything from scratch without help. The ambitious strategy failed, so Apple abandoned the idea.
However, Ghosn says the reason for giving up on the Apple Car was "because of value." Ghosn believes Apple's brand can "attract anyone," so finding a company to work with on a vehicle was easy. The lower margin, especially as the Apple Car was expected to carry a price tag well over $100K, didn't make sense for a company that is "used to high-margin, huge-return business," Ghosn added.
The former Nissan CEO says Apple wanted to build "something totally unique" and didn't plan to become a traditional carmaker.
People familiar with the matter said Project Titan was initially developed as a minivan doubling as a living room on wheels. Apple wanted the vehicle to offer Level 5 autonomous driving, meaning no human intervention was required. The vehicle didn't even have a steering wheel and pedals, and Apple wanted human control to be assured via an iPhone app or a gaming controller similar to the one we use for the PlayStation.
Apple eventually scaled down its plan when it acknowledged that building a Level 5 self-driving vehicle would have been impossible. It's believed that Apple's leadership team estimated that finalizing an Apple Car would have taken another decade, so CEO Tim Cook decided to abandon the project.
The Apple Car was downgraded significantly, at one point reaching the stage where it used a conventional configuration with steering wheels and pedals. Apple wanted the Apple Car to offer very limited self-driving capabilities in an attempt to bring it to the market faster.
Ghosn says Apple's focus was to "create value around connectivity," making the Apple Car an integral part of the entire ecosystem. The project will never came to be, though I wouldn’t be surprised to see the company resuming the work on the vehicle by the end of the decade.
Carlos Ghosn, the former Nissan CEO and now a fugitive in Lebanon, believes Apple ditched the Apple Car for a different reason: the company understood it wouldn't make as much money as it initially believed.
Many experts and representatives of automakers believe Apple abandoned the car project because it couldn't get it right. The reasoning makes sense. Apple doesn't have the know-how to build a car, and after failed negotiations with Mercedes, Hyundai, and other traditional carmakers, it decided to build everything from scratch without help. The ambitious strategy failed, so Apple abandoned the idea.
However, Ghosn says the reason for giving up on the Apple Car was "because of value." Ghosn believes Apple's brand can "attract anyone," so finding a company to work with on a vehicle was easy. The lower margin, especially as the Apple Car was expected to carry a price tag well over $100K, didn't make sense for a company that is "used to high-margin, huge-return business," Ghosn added.
The former Nissan CEO says Apple wanted to build "something totally unique" and didn't plan to become a traditional carmaker.
People familiar with the matter said Project Titan was initially developed as a minivan doubling as a living room on wheels. Apple wanted the vehicle to offer Level 5 autonomous driving, meaning no human intervention was required. The vehicle didn't even have a steering wheel and pedals, and Apple wanted human control to be assured via an iPhone app or a gaming controller similar to the one we use for the PlayStation.
Apple eventually scaled down its plan when it acknowledged that building a Level 5 self-driving vehicle would have been impossible. It's believed that Apple's leadership team estimated that finalizing an Apple Car would have taken another decade, so CEO Tim Cook decided to abandon the project.
The Apple Car was downgraded significantly, at one point reaching the stage where it used a conventional configuration with steering wheels and pedals. Apple wanted the Apple Car to offer very limited self-driving capabilities in an attempt to bring it to the market faster.
Ghosn says Apple's focus was to "create value around connectivity," making the Apple Car an integral part of the entire ecosystem. The project will never came to be, though I wouldn’t be surprised to see the company resuming the work on the vehicle by the end of the decade.
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