Media report
Car project cost Apple more than ten billion dollars
For years there has been speculation about Apple’s entry into the car industry. Now Apple is said to have pulled the plug on the electric vehicle project. photo
© Jens Kalaene/dpa
The rumors about Apple’s car persisted for years. Now the iPhone company seems to have buried the plans. The group is said to have invested around $10 billion.
According to media reports, the iPhone company informed the employees involved about the discontinuation of the project on Tuesday. Accordingly, Apple recently wanted to bring an electric car with driving assistance functions onto the market. The group started development around a decade ago and, among other things, also worked on software for autonomous driving.
Those involved should now develop AI
According to reports, programmers from the car project should instead develop software with artificial intelligence. CEO Tim Cook announced new AI functions from Apple at the online general meeting on Wednesday. An outlook on software innovations for Apple devices is traditionally provided at the WWDC developer conference in June.
There have been many rumors about Apple’s car project over the years. The group is said to have shown initial prototypes to potential partners from the automotive industry years ago, but then, according to media reports, it was temporarily decided to focus on software for autonomous driving. All that was definitely known was that until recently Apple had been sending test cars converted into self-driving vehicles onto the streets in Silicon Valley.