#icar

It’s been coming for years and is rumored to turn the automotive world upside down. But the all-electric Apple Car has failed to manifest. We’ve covered the many hardships endured by the code-named Project Titan, which supposedly employed 5,000 people and was rumored to have roped in Volkswagen. But that was in 2018, years after the vehicle’s development cycle had begun and allegedly changed from a pod-like autonomous car built by Magna International to a corporate shuttle based on the VW Transporter.

The story of Apple’s EV has changed so many times over the years that it’s getting hard to believe that we will ever see it. But the latest from the corporate press suggests that it’s still coming.

Following several months of news that Apple Inc. was in talks with battery suppliers to set the company up with the necessary hardware and know-how to manufacture electric vehicles, it looks like the iPhone purveyor is back to square one. Reports have emerged claiming the discussions with China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL) and BYD have stalled.

While the tech giant is said to be keeping a channel open, companies informed Apple over the last two months that they would not be willing to establish teams and U.S. facilities catering exclusively to its needs. While Japan’s Panasonic is still in the mix as a potential partner, it’s looking like the other companies are bowing out. Reasons are said to vary, however, political tensions between the U.S. and China are alleged to be a contributing factor.

Apple’s attempt at building an electric vehicle has always come across as a little halfhearted, though any indication that the company has abandoned the project is swiftly replaced by renewed reports that it’s being spun up again. This week was no different as Ford announced it had scooped up Doug Field — a former Tesla engineer who served as Apple’s vice president for special projects, including Project Titan.

This allegedly spells disaster for the computer company’s automotive efforts. But the business has been down so many dead-end roads already that we’re not willing to make the same assumptions as the rest of the media. While this is likely represents a setback for Apple, it’s difficult to say how big without knowing where it was in terms of overall development. Despite launching its vehicle program in 2014, the company has literally nothing to show for its years of work.

Apple has been in the headlines all week over changes to its policy that is introducing a image detection system that effectively allows the company to scan the iCloud to see if you have any illegal photos on there. While framed primarily as a way for the company to root out pedophilia, it’s gotten the company in trouble with an increasingly privacy savvy public that’s convinced the next step is generalized surveillance. But while the technology company has been busy trying to improve optics, issuing assurances that its new security protocols won’t overlap with government action and claims that its actions are no worse than what its chief rivals are already doing, the latest on the Apple Car is going unaddressed.

The off-and-on-again vehicle program is reportedly making moves with South Korean suppliers to ensure its got a lock on components. Curious, considering we were under the impression that the automobile was nowhere near completion.

Apple has targeted 2024 to produce a passenger vehicle that could include proprietary self-driving and battery technologies, according to Reuters.

Apple has been perpetually flip-flopping in terms of developing autonomous vehicles. In 2014, the company was rumored to have begun work on an autonomous electric car, codenamed “Project Titan,” with hundreds of employees devoted solely to its development.

Management issues and logistical problems impaired its progress, leading Apple to abandon the project. Since then, Bob Mansfield has fronted a renewed effort to focus on building an autonomous driving system rather than a complete car. At least, that was everyone’s best guess, as the company has been semi-secretive about its mission since day one.

That changed on Tuesday, when CEO Tim Cook confirmed that Apple does indeed have a self-driving development program. The chief executive even went so far as to call it “the mother of all A.I. projects.” That’s quite the claim to make, considering making the tech work on a car is half the battle and Apple has no practical experience building an autonomous vehicle.

After numerous rumored postponements to the vehicle’s intended release, repeated strategy disagreements, large-scale layoffs, and the loss of key team members assigned to the self-driving vehicle project, it appears that Apple is scrapping the idea of building a car entirely.

According to Bloomberg, hundreds of members of Apple’s Project Titan have been laid off, reassigned to other projects, or have outright quit over the last few months. As a result, the initiative has been embarrassingly “refocused” once again.

In social situations, general convention holds that, unless you want to incite a riot, certain topics remain off-limits: politics, religion, and — increasingly — one’s choice of technology. Vocal cords have been inflamed and dinners have been ripped asunder with invectives hurled at Android or epithets tossed towards Apple.

Bob Lutz is on record opining that Apple’s efforts in developing a car are “going to be a gigantic money pit” — and he’s probably right.

Here’s the thing though: Apple has a history of figuring out how to make big profits with products traditionally considered to be low margin. Add this to the fact that Apple is rich enough to spend huge bucks on developing a car, only to drop it all and walk away if they’re unhappy with the project.

Think they won’t?

Henry Blodget publishes Business Insider. Blodget is a former managing director of Merrill Lynch who rose to fame in the late 1990s on his timely and correct prediction that Amazon stock would reach $400, then lost his $12 million/year job following the burst of the dot.com bubble, and then was permanently barred by the Securities and Exchange Commission over fraud allegations*. Blodget still has outstanding sources and contacts within the tech sector. In a post at his website, Blodget discusses the current excitement about tech companies like Google and Apple exploring automotive ventures, which some say are aiming at becoming the next Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG. Not only does he say that the tech sector is cyclical, that the current bubble will also eventually burst and that Apple’s outsized success with their smartphones has been anomalous even for that now routinely successful firm, he makes some sound arguments the next Porsche AG is not likely to come from the Silicon Valley.