According to information, Apple He pulled down the shutters on Project Titan, an initiative to build the future of transportation. If the reports are true, the project has chewed up billions of dollars and several top leaders as its mission has changed and changed again. What started out as an unsupervised autonomous vehicle is finally here scaled down to total EV but you know Made by Apple. But to be honest, I never believed that we would ever see an Apple Car in the real world, because it seemed so impossible that it was fictional.
I’m not saying the Titan itself doesn’t exist, because every company has speculative projects, and I’m sure the reports of what it’s getting are accurate — Tim Cook must have said “The Machine?” on the board at some point. If any company could come in, learn the skills needed to build and launch a car, and do it well (and profitably), it would be Apple. Other tech companies like Sony are making real noise about entering the field, even though they’re partnering with Honda. But from many logical points of view, it was impossible to understand the idea that Apple would start making cars.
There is a line inside The unbearable lightness of existence where kitsch—the German word for bad or tacky art—is defined as a denial of the realities of life. Apple fits this description because it has been wildly successful despite decisions that often fly in the face of common sense. The watch lasts less than a day on a single charge. A phone with a slippery front and back glass, easily dropped and terribly difficult to repair. A mouse is still sold with a charging port on the bottom so you can only charge it when not in use.
Even the most eco-friendly car still needs oil and grease to lubricate its working parts, tires to put rubber on the road, and brake pads to wear out. Seats that deal with spilled coffee and baby vomit when you’re on a long trip, but the dirt you find when you load IKEA boxes into your trunk. Can you imagine, Apple’s design team was behind it FineWoven boxshould have been dragged kicking and screaming towards bigger batteries, USB-C and waterproofing?
While Apple now has a lot of control over its devices, cars aren’t tied down so neatly. Imagine how difficult it would be for a control-obsessed company to give so much to the auto shops of the world. Yes, you have to take your Tesla back for major repairs, but can you imagine not being able to change your tires when you buy an apartment? Unless, of course, Apple plans to build garages in every major population center to overwhelm you when it’s time for an oil change.
That’s before Apple, obsessed enough with its brand, decided to plaster its logo on the internet every time one of its cars kissed a lamppost. Car accidents are an unfortunate fact of life these days that we as a society are not prepared to deal with the way we should. But all it takes is one death in an Apple car and the company will be demonized — and open to multiple lawsuits, all eager to get a piece of Apple’s cash pile.
The car may also tarnish the company’s environmental stance, and I can already imagine the internal kinks. Executives driving a convertible Mercedes into Apple Park’s underground garage would, I’m sure, totally like the Apple car. But I can’t imagine the company’s teams having to look at the numbers on energy consumption, emissions and climate change. If Apple Beautiful words about caring for the environment say it allhe would throw his weight and expertise behind something better like scooters or e-bikes.
I also struggled to understand how Apple could justify charging $100,000 for a limited-run EV when there were real mass-market gains to be made. Electric cars require a huge amount of capital and labor to assemble, and it’s not nearly as profitable as what Apple is doing today. In the third quarter of 2023, WV, the world’s largest carmaker, had a net profit of about $4.7 billion, which is about a quarter of Apple’s revenue in the same period. How many luxury EVs can Apple get out the door, and how many does it need to sell to justify that initial investment?
In fact, I suspect a lot of people are placing a lot of unreasonable hopes on the shoulders of Project Titan. Apple is scaling back. You can imagine them saying, “We’ll make a car without wheels, that would be great,” and then saying, “Well, maybe it’ll have wheels…” Years later, they’re like, “Oh, how. It’s just a non-autonomous car like a Mercedes.” It doesn’t scream the kind of class-leading ambitions you usually see with an Apple product, does it?
Yes, there can be many beautiful renderings of what an Apple car would look like, created by talented graphic designers looking to expand their portfolio. There’s been a lot of wishy-washy talk on social media about Apple buying another EV maker like Tesla or Rivian — though Apple has only bought a brand company once or twice in a decade. But until the NDAs expire and we get a tell-all book with the inside scoop, I’ll say that the Apple Car never came close to becoming a reality, despite billions of dollars spent on it.
