[update][5] In May 2018, Apple reportedly partnered with Volkswagen to produce an autonomous employee shuttle van based on the T6 Transporter commercial vehicle platform.
[10] In February 2024, Apple executives canceled their plans to release the autonomous electric vehicle, instead shifting resources on the project to the company's generative artificial intelligence efforts.
[15] During the 2008–2010 automotive industry crisis, with car companies nearing collapse, Apple SVP Tony Fadell proposed to Jobs the idea of buying General Motors at a reduced price.
[14] The Korea Economic Daily reported in 2021 that Hyundai was in early discussions with Apple to develop and produce self-driving electric cars jointly.
[20] By early February, it appeared that Apple was close to a $3.59B deal with Hyundai to use its Kia Motors' West Point, Georgia manufacturing plant for the car,[21] a fully autonomous machine without a driver's seat.
[30] For the project, Apple was rumored to have hired Johann Jungwirth, the former president and chief executive of Mercedes-Benz Research and Development North America, as well as at least one transmission engineer.
Cook enumerated ways that the modern descendants of the Ford Model T would be shaken to the very chassis—the growing importance of software in the car of the future, the rise of autonomous vehicles, and the shift from an internal combustion engine to electrification.
[6] In 2016, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk stated that Apple will probably make a compelling electric car: "It's pretty hard to hide something if you hire over a thousand engineers to do it.
[52] The Wall Street Journal reported on July 25, 2016, that Apple had convinced retired senior hardware engineering executive Bob Mansfield to return and take over the Titan project.
[53][54] A few days later, on July 29, Bloomberg Technology reported that Apple had hired Dan Dodge, the founder and former chief executive officer of QNX, BlackBerry Ltd.’s automotive software division.
According to Bloomberg, Dodge's hiring heralded a shift in emphasis at Apple's Project Titan, in which the company will prioritize creating software for autonomous vehicles.
[58] After no new reports, car project news flared up again in mid-April 2017, as word spread that Apple was permitted to test autonomous vehicles on California roads.
[60] In mid-August, various sources reported that the car project was focusing on autonomous systems, now expected to test its technology in the real world using a company-operated inter-campus shuttle service between the main Infinite Loop campus in Cupertino and various Silicon Valley offices, including the new Apple Park.
[61][62][63] Then at the end of August, around 17 former Titan team members, braking and suspension engineers with Detroit experience, were hired by autonomous vehicle startup Zoox.
[66][67] In November 2017, Apple employees Yin Zhou and Oncel Tuzel published a paper on VoxelNet, which uses a convolutional neural network to detect three-dimensional objects using lidar.
[68] Transportation/tech website Jalopnik reported in late November that Apple was recruiting automotive test engineering and tech talent for autonomous systems work and appeared to be secretly leasing, via third parties, a former Fiat Chrysler proving grounds site in Surprise, Arizona (originally Wittman).
[7] In August 2018, there were reports about an Apple patent of a system that warns riders ahead of time about what an autonomous car would do, purportedly to alleviate the discomfort of surprise.
[90] In January 2024, Bloomberg reports suggested that Apple further delayed the car's release date to 2028, significantly scaling down its plans for self-driving and instead focusing on basic driver-assistance features similar to existing electric vehicles.
[92] Most of the offices impacted by the layoffs were previously linked to project Titan[93] and one, 3250 Scott Blvd, code named Aria,[94] was developing the microLED screens.