In the matter of car manufacturing, Apple still chose to compromise with reality. On February 28th, according to Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman, after ten years and billions of dollars of effort and investment, Apple has abandoned its electric vehicle project in competition with Tesla, and some employees will shift to generative artificial intelligence teams.
The market has given very positive recognition and feedback on Apple's move. After the news came out, Apple's stock price, which had fallen more than 0.6% during trading, continued to rebound, rising more than 1.4% at 183.831 per share. As of the close on February 27th local time, Apple was trading at $182.63 per share, up 0.81%, with a total market value of $2.8 trillion.
Apple disclosed the news internally on Tuesday, surprising nearly 2000 employees involved in the project. Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams and Vice President Kevin Lynch, who was responsible for the project, jointly made the decision. According to two executives, the project will gradually begin and end, with many employees in the automotive team being transferred to the artificial intelligence department led by John Giannandrea, which is also an increasingly critical priority for Apple. Hundreds of other hardware engineers and automotive designers in the Apple automotive team may apply for other jobs in the Apple team.
Apple did not respond to the news, but Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded with a salute and smoking emoji on X.
The origin of Apple's car making began in 2014, when Apple launched a car making project codenamed "Titan". However, in the subsequent promotion process, the person in charge of Apple's automotive business was constantly adjusting, and the car making strategy was also changing, which also led to news coverage of "delays" for Apple cars.
The latest news is that Apple's Vice President of Hardware Engineering, DJ Novotney, has been reported by the media to be about to resign. He is one of the core members of Apple's Titan program. In addition, Mark Goodman also stated earlier this year that Apple's release date has been extended from 2026 to 2028, and the vehicle's autonomous driving level has been downgraded to L2+.
In fact, there have been rumors about Apple stopping car manufacturing for a long time. In March 2022, Apple analyst Guo Minggui claimed that Apple's automotive team had actually "disbanded for some time" and must undergo restructuring within the next three to six months in order to start mass production of cars before 2025.
The reason why Apple can dominate the world as a technology giant is because it is betting on the mobile era, which has brought Apple a sustained and super long period of prosperity for nearly 20 years. The iPhone has led the global era of smartphones, and when it comes to the automotive business, Apple once had the same ambition. According to the foreign media The Information, in the past few years, Apple has established three major development directions. Initially, it cooperated with Magna to create a small truck, dedicated to improving the intelligent driving experience; Around 2016, Apple no longer sought vehicle manufacturing, but turned to the hot topic of autonomous driving technology in the new energy vehicle industry; Afterwards, Apple's car making philosophy was once again adjusted to create passenger car products. After strategic adjustments and wavering, Apple chose to withdraw.
In the past decade, the world of new energy vehicles has undergone significant changes. Currently, the penetration rate of electric vehicles has approached 20%. Tesla and Chinese automotive brands have taken the lead in capturing the minds of users and quickly entered the stage of a fierce price war.
In 2023, Tesla's annual car delivery volume increased by 38% year-on-year, reaching 1.81 million vehicles, firmly ranking first in the global new energy market; On the other hand, China's new car making force, car companies, are rapidly expanding their market size and seizing the minds of users. In addition to brands such as BYD, Ideal, and Huawei Smart, Xiaomi, which has not yet been officially launched, has also attracted attention. Although the pricing of the Xiaomi SU7 has not been announced, during the 2024 Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Lu Weibing, a partner, CEO, and general manager of the Xiaomi brand, stated in an interview with MWC that the Xiaomi SU7 will soon be officially released and will be delivered in China as early as the second quarter.
From Apple's recent actions, it can be seen that with the launch of Vision Pro, Apple will continue to invest in XR and spatial computing in the future. In addition, during the more than a year of the frenzy of generative artificial intelligence, Apple did not take much action, and even gave up its global market value throne, which had been maintained for more than a decade, to Microsoft, who had bet on AI. And when Apple's employees join the generative AI team, it may also accelerate their progress in AI.
Mark Goodman previously revealed that iOS 18 may become the largest software update in iPhone history. Apple plans to integrate some new artificial intelligence features in iOS 18, including an upgraded version of Siri. The upgraded version of Siri is more intelligent and can utilize a new artificial intelligence system that integrates large-scale language modeling technology. It will have the ability for natural dialogue for the first time, providing users with personalized experiences.