For the past decade, many Apple employees working on the company’s secret car project, internally codenamed Titan, have had a less flattering name for it: the Titanic disaster. They knew the project was likely to fail.
Throughout its existence, the car effort was dismantled and restarted several times, shedding hundreds of workers along the way. As a result of a duel of opinions between leaders about what an Apple car should be, it started as an electric vehicle to compete with Tesla and was transformed into a self-driving car to compete with Google’s Waymo.
By the time of its demise — on Tuesday, when executives announced internally that the project had been killed and many team members reassigned to work on artificial intelligence — Apple had burned through more than $10 billion on the project, and the car was back at its inception as an electric vehicle with driver-assistance features that rival those of Tesla, according to half a dozen people who have worked on the project over the past decade.
The collapse of the car project was a testament to how Apple struggled to develop new products in the years after Steve Jobs’ death in 2011. The effort had four different leaders and went through several rounds of layoffs. But it bloated and eventually disintegrated largely because developing the software and algorithms for a car with self-driving features proved too difficult.
Apple declined to comment.
“When it started, the stars aligned on something that Apple alone could hit home,” said Bryant Walker Smith, an associate professor in the law and engineering schools at the University of South Carolina, who briefed Apple on the project in 2015. “A decade later, the stars have realigned to make this a big risk rather than a big payoff.”
When Apple launched its car in 2014, it was among a flurry of investors, executives, engineers and companies chasing the idea of a self-driving car. After Google began testing prototypes on public roads in California, voices across Silicon Valley insisted that autonomous vehicles will soon be commonplace. Apple didn’t want to be left behind.
At the time, the company was facing questions from its top engineers about its next project, according to three people familiar with the project’s origins. The Apple Watch had just been finished and many engineers were anxious to start working on something new. Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, approved the project in part to prevent an engineering exodus at Tesla.
Apple also had to find new ways to expand its business. The company expected iPhone sales to slow in the coming years. The cars were part of a $2 trillion transportation industry that could help Apple, which by then was a nearly $200 billion business.
Despite having a vote of confidence from Apple’s CEO, team members knew they were working against harsh realities, according to the six employees familiar with the project. If it ever came to market, an Apple car was likely to cost at least $100,000 and still make a razor-thin profit compared to smartphones and headphones. It would also arrive years after Tesla had dominated the market.
The company has had some discussions with Elon Musk about acquiring Tesla, according to two people familiar with the talks. But eventually, she decided that building her own car made more sense than buying and incorporating another business.
Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
Since its inception, the project has been troubled by differing opinions about what it should be, those familiar with it said. Steve Zadesky, who initially led the effort, wanted to build an electric vehicle to compete with Tesla. Jony Ive, Apple’s chief design officer, wanted to pursue a self-driving car, which members of the software team said could be done.
Apple, which by then had $155 billion in cash, spent lavishly to hire hundreds of people with expertise in machine learning, a type of AI technology and other capabilities crucial to building a self-driving car. The influx of people made the project one of the first Apple had developed with so many foreign young people in the company’s culture.
The automotive team, which had more than 2,000 employees until this year, included engineers who had worked for NASA and developed race cars for Porsche.
The team developed a number of new technologies, including a windshield that could display turn-by-turn directions and a sunroof that would feature a special polymer to reduce heat from the sun.
To boost morale and leadership, star executives such as Mr. Ive and Mac engineering chief Bob Mansfield were involved. The company acquired several start-ups to join the automotive group. In 2021, to steer the project to success, Apple put Kevin Lynch, the executive behind its popular Apple Watch, in charge of the car.
Mr. Ive and his team of designers drew up ideas for a car that would look like a European minivan, like the Fiat Multipla 600, which has half a dozen windows and a curved roof. It had no steering wheel and would be controlled using Apple’s virtual assistant, Siri.
One day in the fall of 2015, Mr. Ive and Mr. Cook met at the project’s headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, for a demonstration of how the car worked. The two men sank into the seats of a cabin-like interior. Outside, an actor read from a script what Siri would say as the men zoomed down the street in the imaginary car. Mr. Ive asked Siri what restaurant they passed, and the actor read a response, two people familiar with the demonstration said.
But by 2016, it was clear that the car’s effort was problematic. Mr. Zadesky left Apple and his successor, Mr. Mansfield, told the team working on the project that they would shift their focus from building a car to building software for self-driving cars, three people with knowledge of the shift said.
Apple has secured permits from California to begin test driving Lexus sports cars equipped with sensors and computers. It held talks with carmakers such as BMW, Nissan and Mercedes-Benz before striking a deal with Volkswagen to supply Transporter trucks for self-driving buses on Apple’s campus.
Two more leaders took over the automobile effort in the years that followed. Doug Field, a former Tesla executive, laid off more than 200 employees at the project as he scuttled efforts to build the self-driving system. Then Mr. Lynch, who succeeded him in recent years, reversed the company’s plans and returned to its original idea of building an electric vehicle.
Mr. Mansfield and Mr. Field did not respond to requests for comment.
Earlier this year, Apple’s leadership decided it was a better use of the company’s time to work on genetic artificial intelligence than on the car, the company told employees at an internal meeting Tuesday. The company said some members of the Project Titan team will be redeployed to work on artificial intelligence.
In interviews Wednesday with The New York Times, people who worked on the project praised the decision to shut it down, saying the technology behind genetic artificial intelligence could be invaluable to the future of the company’s all-important iPhone business.
Apple’s dead car project will survive on its underlying technologies. The company plans to take what it has learned about artificial intelligence and automation and apply it to other technologies under investigation, including AI AirPods with cameras, robot assistants and augmented reality, according to three people briefed on the projects.
Although engineers working on automation software will begin working on AI projects, others in the auto team have been told they will have to apply for different roles at the company.
Cade Metz contributed to the report.
