NYT: Apple "burned through" more than $10 billion on Project Titan, an autonomous car project that employees called the "Titanic disaster"

Recently it became known that Apple has canceled its car project with an internal name Project Titan and transferred about 2000 employees from the autonomous car division to generative AI projects.

It is noted that the tech giant started Project Titan as a concept, shortly after the release of the first Apple Watch in 2014. At that time, the company had clear plans to "compete" with Tesla and capture a significant share of the electric car market.

At the same time, The New York Times writes that some employees even welcomed the closure of Project Titan, as they had long been calling it "Titanic Disaster" among themselves, considering the constant changes in management and goals.

According to the publication, Apple invested about $10 billion in the project, and allegedly stopped working on it not because of engineering problems, but because of financial unviability. There were rumors that charging $100,000 for a car was not enough for Apple to make a healthy profit, and considering that the most affordable Tesla costs $42,990, the company lost the battle even before stepping onto the electric car battlefield.

The news of Apple's departure from this space surprised many Chinese electric car manufacturers, but analysts called this decision the right one, believing that the company will finally be able to focus on the next big thing - AI.