The team of employees Apple had working on the company’s long-rumored self-driving electric vehicle (EV) “has been dissolved for some time,” says reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of TFI Asset Management Limited (via MacRumors).
Kuo, who in December 2020 pegged the Apple Car for a 2025-2027 launch at the earliest, added that Apple needs to reorganize the project team within the next three to six months in order to have any chance of entering mass production by 2025.
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.
— 郭明錤 (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) March 15, 2022
Apple has reportedly faced several setbacks in developing “Project Titan” — its foray into the automotive space, which was approved all the way back in 2014.
After failed negotiations with several automotive industry veterans in early 2021, Apple in September of last year was said to be developing its all-electric autonomous car alone and looking for suppliers.
A November 2021 report from Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman said Apple was ramping up work on its car project, and aiming for an EV with full self-driving capabilities. Gurman also said Apple was internally planning for a 2025 launch.
Late last year, Apple reportedly sent an envoy to South Korea to meet with prospective suppliers for its EV project. A report from earlier this month suggested that long-term Apple suppliers Foxconn and Luxshare will be part of the Apple Car supply chain, but nothing is set in stone at this time.
Apple’s Project Titan team has also seen numerous shuffles and leadership changes over the years. According to Gurman, Apple’s VP of Technology Kevin Lynch took over as helmsman for Project Titan last year.
If Apple manages to reconstitute a team to work on its EV project, MacRumors says we could see the car launch “in around three years at the earliest.”
