By: Geetanjali
Apple Unplugs the Project: “Titan”
After decades of hard work behind Steve Jobs’ dream car, Apple has finally planned to unplug the project “Titan” on Wednesday, February 27, 2024. Under project Titan, Apple planned to build an AI operated driverless car.
Unlike Tesla produced self-driving cars which still require human intervention, Apple pictured an EV (Electric Vehicle) that would require no human intervention, cars somewhat similar to what we see in a scifi movie.
In an interview with Bloomberg, the idea of starting this project came from a random conversation between Steve Jobs and his Vice-president about what their dream car would look like, however the real work on the project started in 2014. Ever since then the project has been through a lot of highs and lows, there have been times when it felt impossible to continue it any further.
Started as a secret mission in 2014 by Steve Jobs and Tony Fadell project “Titan” aims to create Electric Vehicles. It’s said initially a minivan type of design was chosen for the project, but was later scrapped out. Apple hasn’t been very public about their EV project, as they already had a plan B to use their technology in incase this project failed.
Despite this much secrecy, Apple seemed to be serious about the project as more than 2000 employees have been working on it, as per Bloomberg’s report Apple also hired Dan Dodge (Founder of QNX) to lead software development of the project. With the acquisition of Drive.AI in 2019 an AI based vehicle technology startup to advance project Titans development process.
We get to see a major breakthrough in the year 2016 when Apple decides to diversify its track into two, one will focus on the building of the car, and the other will focus on developing the software for the driverless car. Which will help speed up the project’s development process.
According to Bloomberg’s reports that by 2022 Apple realised that its vision of creating a driverless self driving car without a steering wheel is nearly impossible to create with the present technology.
Later, they took forward the idea of self driving cars with human intervention like Tesla’s self-driving cars. Even after these changes , it will still take more than a decade for Apple to launch their first car, which is anticipated to enter the market by 2026 or 2028.
The 2000+ employees working on the project will be taking the hit, as per the information several employees will be shifted to other departments and projects within the company including the Artificial Intelligence (AI) working on advancing AI, one who failed to get any position will have to quit.
