Apple Wisely Drops Car Project

Cupertino is known for being car-brained. Executives at Apple love their cars. So it took guts to cancel this project.

I couldn't let this pass without a link. Apple has dropped its car project, and re-allocated all 2,000 people from the team. This is a smart and welcome move.

Yes it would have been interesting to see Apple's take on an electric vehicle. I'm sure they could have made quite a decent one! But seeing EVs as the future of transport is an idea rooted in the past. The 'faster horse', if you will.

While the exact reasons for the cancellation remain unspecified, it was surely a combination of factors that led to the project's demise.

Low profit margins and the reputational damage behind any deaths caused by your vehicle would have at least been factors in the decision to cease working on a car.

The bigger reasons to kill the car project must be one that get difficult over time: messaging to customers in inner-city areas – where car-use is only becoming more contentious – as well as demographic shift in those who drive and have licences. Namely: fewer young people year-on-year.

Throw in net-zero by 2030 commitments, and the whole project was looking very shaky by 2023. And now ceased in 2024.

I said it in 2023, and I stand by it

Everything I said about Apple's car project last year remains true.

Apple releasing a fancy new electric car in 2030 is like Apple releasing a fancy new floppy disk in 2010. It's not that people won't have a use for it, it's just not the future.

And I of course stand by the conclusion:

Telling the world in 2030 that a new personal motor vehicle from Apple is a net-benefit for a future-looking society would be the biggest challenge of all.

Someone at Apple must be thinking by now: maybe we should ditch this Apple Car project.

I mean this sincerely: this decision took courage. Kudos to those who made the final call.