The highly anticipated Apple Car project, codenamed “Titan”, has been officially canceled after a decade of development and billions of dollars spent. Apple had big plans for this electric vehicle, including an advanced autonomous driving system. To achieve this, the company reportedly created a custom chip that was as powerful as four M2 Ultras combined.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple’s Silicon team played a significant role in the development of the Apple Car before its termination. The focus was on creating an innovative “AI brain” for the vehicle, powered by the custom Apple Silicon chip. This chip, which was almost completed before the project was scrapped, boasted the processing power of four M2 Ultras, each containing 134 billion transistors and featuring a 24-core CPU, a GPU with up to 76 cores, and a dedicated 32-core Neural Engine.
Despite the progress made on this cutting-edge chip, the Apple Car project faced numerous challenges. Apple had been exploring the idea of a car since 2014 under Tim Cook’s leadership, experimenting with various prototypes and even engaging in discussions with major automakers like Mercedes-Benz, Ford, Volkswagen, McLaren, and Tesla. However, the complexity of developing a fully autonomous vehicle proved to be too daunting for Apple, leading to the project’s ultimate demise last month.
As engineers who worked on the Apple Car project were reassigned to other teams within Apple, the company could repurpose the technology developed for the vehicle for future endeavors. Although the cancellation of the Titan project marks the end of Apple’s ambitious foray into the automotive industry, it serves as a reminder of the company’s commitment to innovation and pushing the boundaries of technology.
