Even after a decade of effort and billions of dollars, Apple’s electric car project “Titan” never materialized. The Cupertino tech giant abandoned its most ambitious project in history, despite having high aspirations for the vehicle, including an advanced fully autonomous driving system. To realize these ambitions, Apple reportedly developed a powerful chip equivalent to four M2 Ultras combined.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the Apple Silicon team was heavily involved in the Apple Car project before its cancellation. He also revealed that the company was working tirelessly to develop the “AI brain” of the car, which was intended to be powered by a custom Apple Silicon chip.
Had the project come to fruition, it would have been powered by a new chip equivalent to the power of four M2 Ultras, Apple’s most potent processor yet. Each M2 Ultra chip comprises up to 134 billion transistors and features a 24-core CPU, a 76-core GPU, and a specialized 32-core Neural Engine. Presently, only the latest Mac Studio and Mac Pro boast the capabilities of the M2 Ultra.
What’s particularly intriguing is that Apple had “nearly finished” developing this new chip before the project was canceled. Some of the engineers who were working on the car project were reassigned to Apple’s Generative AI team, indicating that Apple might reuse this new chip for future projects. As of now, there’s no concrete information about Apple’s upcoming plans.
Apple’s car project has been in the works since 2014. It’s disheartening to see that despite a decade of work, Apple’s electric car project never materialized. Under Tim Cook’s leadership, the company explored various ideas and prototypes over the past 10 years. There were even reports that Apple approached Tesla, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Ford, and McLaren about collaborating on a car project.
Originally, Apple executives aimed to create a fully autonomous car, facing numerous challenges along the way. However, the company later decided to revive the project with a less ambitious approach. Unfortunately, it seems that building a car wasn’t Apple’s forte. Despite their efforts, Apple ultimately abandoned its car ambitions after investing $1 billion annually.
The now-defunct Project Titan represents a setback for Apple, which had hoped to diversify its revenue streams beyond iPhones and Macs. It’s intriguing to imagine what Apple could have offered with its luxurious vehicle powered by a high-end Apple Silicon processor. Sadly, Apple’s futuristic vision for the automobile industry won’t be realized in the foreseeable future.
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