Luther Ray Abel writes for National Review Online about a tech giant’s major decision about electric vehicles.
Electric dreams in Palo Alto came to a conclusion as Apple announced that its electric-car project, ten years in the making and code-named “Titan,” is turning out the lights. Some of the project’s resources are expected to be cannibalized for Apple’s generative-AI ambitions elsewhere.
Mark Gurman reports for Bloomberg:
Apple Inc. is canceling a decadelong effort to build an electric car, according to people with knowledge of the matter, abandoning one of the most ambitious projects in the history of the company.
Apple made the disclosure internally Tuesday, surprising the nearly 2,000 employees working on the project, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the announcement wasn’t public. The decision was shared by Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams and Kevin Lynch, a vice president in charge of the effort, according to the people.
The internal reasons for the shuttering may never be known, Apple being an especially secretive company, but from what one can observe of the market and Apple’s desire for high-margin wares, there isn’t much of a future for a product type that very few Americans desire. The latest version of the Apple Car was expected to have a price tag of $100,000 and compete with well-established EV players such as Tesla, General Motors, Mercedes, Rivian, and Lucid — with the exception of Tesla, companies that are already struggling to move vehicles off their lots. … Mercedes is trimming its EV offerings, joining General Motors, who signaled the same last month. Stuck with an underwhelming, expensive to produce, and unwanted product line, Apple appears to have decided that pulling the plug is more attractive than waiting for a launch that may not have happened until 2028!
The resounding thud that has been the broader introduction of electric vehicles into the American market has been an incredible exercise in the public’s politely pushing away what manufacturers and governments tell them they should like.
