There are precious few industries with companies that pull in more revenue than Apple. There are also not many mass market products undergoing the kind of technological innovation we’re seeing right now in the smartphone market; Apple’s flagship product, the iPhone, is about to get a major facelift in 2017 and even more exciting new tech is expected soon after. The auto industry fits the bill in both cases, so it’s not exactly a mystery why Apple is reportedly working on making an entrance at some point in the coming decade. The cars of tomorrow will look, function and perform like nothing on the market today, and there is a tremendous amount of money to be made by the companies that lead the way. Some might say the auto industry has “Apple” written all over it right now.
According to a new report, however, Apple’s efforts to build and release its own car have been halted.
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Apple had reportedly assembled a team to secretly work on “Project Titan,” the company’s internal codename for its automobile project. Numerous reports have stated that the company was working toward producing a fully electric car with next-generation features that would include advanced self-driving technology.
Apple is already falling behind in this area, considering how many millions of miles self-driving car solutions have recorded on public roads from rival companies at this point, but Apple rarely concerns itself with being first to market when developing new products and solutions. Instead, the company works to build the best product it can.
When it comes to self-driving technology, building the best product may have become the sole purpose of Apple’s internal team that has been working on Project Titan. A new report from Bloomberg on Monday morning reiterates that Apple’s Titan team has undergone a big shift that resulted in hundreds of employees having been reassigned or let go. That shift, according to the report, moves the team’s focus away from building a car and onto the development of a self-driving autonomous car platform.
Apple initially assembled a team of about 1,000 employees to develop, build and release a car by 2020, according to reports that first began to surface last year. But now, according to Bloomberg, the team’s primary goal has changed: They will have to develop an autonomous driving solution and prove its feasibility by the end of next year.
