'Apple Car' team dissolved & 2025 launch may be in doubt says Ming-Chi Kuo

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reports that the project team behind pre-production of the Apple Car has been dissolved, and without rapid reworking, the car will not make its expected 2025 launch.

Despite recent reports that Apple was likely to announce a partnership to mass produce an "Apple Car" in 2025, Ming-Chi Kuo says the date is in question. According to the analyst, there is currently no project team in place at Apple.

The Apple Car project team has been dissolved for some time. The reorganization within the next three to six months is necessary to achieve the goal of mass production by 2025.
— (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) March 15, 2022

Kuo offers no further details, so it's not known how long the team has been disbanded, nor at what stage they were. However, in December 2021, it was reported that three "Apple Car" engineers had left for other companies.

Also in September 2021, Apple Watch executive Kevin Lynch was said to have been reassigned to manage the "Apple Car" team. In 2020, it was reported that Apple's AI and Siri head, John Giannandrea, was overseeing development.

It's conceivable that Apple's design work and plans could even have been completed. If that was the case, however, at least some members of a team would be expected to stay through the manufacturing process.

The team behind what's reportedly known internally as "Project Titan," have reportedly been disbanded and/or reorganized before. In 2016, Apple placed a hiring freeze on the team following unspecified executives being unhappy with progress.

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53 Comments

shareef777

said about 2 years ago

Considering how often I've read this team gets dissolved, I'm not sure the Apple Car will ever be a thing.

Beats

said about 2 years ago

I hope it gets released. The industry needs another push towards electric.

tjwolf

said about 2 years ago

shareef777 said:

Considering how often I've read this team gets dissolved, I'm not sure the Apple Car will ever be a thing.

It's not even clear it ever was a thing! That's the nice thing about rumors - you start one and then simply start another one saying the parties to the first rumor changed their plans. Voila, you've gotten clicks/revenue on both.

Apple definitely wants to be in its customers' cars. But I always thought their ambitions lay solely in CarPlay with a future version of CarPlay reaching further into the car - e.g. providing self-driving capabilities, etc. Building your own cars is not only highly capital intensive, it's also not all that lucrative - at least not compared to the 30+% margins Apple gets from its iDevices and 70+% on its services. Were any of the rumors that Apple was approaching car manufacturers to build a car from them ever substantiated? I mean, I have no doubt Apple did talk to various manufacturers about such a partnership, but that could have just been to inform themselves what the margins, in fact, would be.

There is supposedly a "Project Titan" at Apple that relates to the car. But that could simply be a software team working on self-driving features of a future CarPlay, no?

mark fearing

said about 2 years ago

tjwolf said:

shareef777 said:

Considering how often I've read this team gets dissolved, I'm not sure the Apple Car will ever be a thing.

It's not even clear it ever was a thing! That's the nice thing about rumors - you start one and then simply start another one saying the parties to the first rumor changed their plans. Voila, you've gotten clicks/revenue on both.

Apple definitely wants to be in its customers' cars. But I always thought their ambitions lay solely in CarPlay with a future version of CarPlay reaching further into the car - e.g. providing self-driving capabilities, etc. Building your own cars is not only highly capital intensive, it's also not all that lucrative - at least not compared to the 30+% margins Apple gets from its iDevices and 70+% on its services. Were any of the rumors that Apple was approaching car manufacturers to build a car from them ever substantiated? I mean, I have no doubt Apple did talk to various manufacturers about such a partnership, but that could have just been to inform themselves what the margins, in fact, would be.

There is supposedly a "Project Titan" at Apple that relates to the car. But that could simply be a software team working on self-driving features of a future CarPlay, no?

YUP. All rumors. No idea if the company was looking into it as a manufacturer or just looking into the tech behind it all to have a seat at the table. All rumors. Nothing ever said by the company. The project could be entirely software based. And it really is a totally different biz. My feeling always was, if they were going to get into it it would be through a service. In large cities you could join for X-dollars a month, perhaps in three tiers and have access to self driving cars of different sizes/scales. That’s the only way this makes sense. They do not want to start selling cars directly to consumers.

DAalseth

said about 2 years ago

I have doubted, and still am skeptical that Apple will release a car. Components for cars, yes. Systems to work in cars, almost certainly. But they can make a lot of money with a lot less hassle, producing things to go in other people’s cars. You’d still need to do everything they have been doing, road testing and such, to develop products for other companies vehicles.