Apple Lays Off 600+ Employees After Canceling Car Project

[AlmightyKang]

So you suggest that we stick with our gasoline powered vehicles forever? I agree that the current iteration of electric vehicles has issues but I can’t imagine the early gasoline powered vehicles were without problems as well.

Perhaps the answer is electric bicycles because it does seem a little silly to use a 4000 pound machine to transport a 200 pound human.

I’m certainly not suggesting that. What I am suggesting is we start looking at that stupid idea where we built towns, cities around eternal car ownership and the requirement of transport. This was one of the stupidest bits of oversight in human history. But of course infrastructure investment is not sexy because there are slow returns and high capital cost.

And a secondary issue: when your society is built on office property investments no one is going to want to persuade people not to travel because that affects their rental yield.

Come back to the office. Buy an EV. The future Will be fine.

Like hell it will.

 

[Surf Monkey]

You're simply speculating, Macrumors. Apple is thinning in other skunk works projects, not just the Car, and the Car project has been expanded and downsized several times over the years.

Hey! They gotta focus on that robot!

 

[russell_314]

I know many will disagree but I think EVs are doomed. They are expensive to buy, expensive to repair and can’t get you anywhere outside the city.

I rented a Tesla from Hertz once. It was a terrible experience. The car was absolutely dreadful to drive and operate. No coasting, every adjustment needs to be found in the large annoying screen, and the worst… no easily fill up. We barely made it back to the airport. Needless to say that the mile remaining somehow only gets you about 2/3 of what it claims.

Oh… and once you include all the battery technology and mining required, they aren’t even better for the environment.

Can’t get you anywhere outside the city? Do you mean they stop moving once you leave city limits? Do you think the range is that short? I’m confused here.

I agree that Hertz made a terrible decision to rent Teslas to people who have never driven one. IMO it’s not a car that you can just jump in and drive without some understanding of how it operates.


Also not all electric vehicles operate like a Tesla so your experience would have been different if you rented a different brand of electric vehicle. Some drive just like gasoline powered vehicles with the exception of you don’t put gas in them.

 

[Black Tiger]

I’m actually amazed that this was ever even a thing. Vehicle manufacturing is so far outside of Apple’s area of expertise, and that doesn’t even include the ideas of autonomous driving that they were pursuing. Probably for the best honestly. A huge distraction that was never really going to take off. And presumably it was going to be a fully electric car and those don’t have much of a future. Plug in hybrids are really the only sensible modern automotive design.

 

[dumastudetto]

While obviously disappointing for some employees, this is good news for those who appreciate Apple is absolutely committed to trimming the fat and maximising shareholder value.

 

[TigerNike23]

Great point.

I had an EV6 rental in Houston that was charging to 80% so fast I couldn’t finish lunch
This issue will continue to diminish over time

Always odd on a tech site like this to see the many flavors of anti EV rhetoric pop up
The fossil fuel PR, lobbying, greenwashing and narrative shifting has done wonders to mix people up and delay

Personal carbon footprint, pollution offset credits…on and on

I’m not anti-EV. I just don’t think BEV’s are the end-all-be-all for transport. They don’t work for tractor trailers or long haulers.

And this is not some tricked out conspiracy theory. The great James May from The Grand Tour and Top Gear fame said BEV’s and fuel cell vehicles should be the petroleum and diesel replacements.

 

[blotchy-veil]

I don’t want to contribute to this becoming an EV debate, so I’ll say that I think BEVs have a place primarily for city driving or commutes. The problem is once you get beyond 200 or so miles. This is where I think the hydrogen car could have taken off. It’s a fast-filling EV with almost no range anxiety. The problem with hydrogen is the lack of infrastructure.

There’s also a big problem with battery EVs: the electric grid. In the United States, we don’t make enough electricity for 50% of the vehicles to be BEVs. We would need significant infrastructure upgrades to our already shoestring electric grid.

Hydrogen is impractical because not only is there no infrastructure, the production of hydrogen fuel cells is also very energy intensive. For it to be truly clean, we would need 100% renewable energy used in its creation, plus the entire manufacturing chain to create the fuel cells and transport them, and on top of that, there's no real vehicles that are compatible. At least with BEV, you can charge at home and there is some infrastructure built out, even if it's sparse outside big cities. For long distance travel, rail would be a better option in most cases if we could build it.

And the tire thing…
Big huge ICE SUVs and Trucks are the same issue

It’s weight, not EVs in any special way

Yep. American model BEVs tend to be huge, because they all try to hit 300-400 mi claimed range and also boast ridiculous acceleration performance (0-60 in 2/3/4 seconds!!!). That Hummer EV is over 9000 lbs! Compare to BEVs that sell outside America, and they're usually comparable in weight or lighter than a basic 4-door ICE car because the range is a more reasonable <200 mi and/or they have "regular" acceleration--you know, for driving and not pretending you're a race car driver. That also typically means foreign models are cheaper (in some cases drastically; BYD China has models under 15k USD).

It seems to me that it would be much more beneficial to have better tire standards and limits on vehicle weights (especially since Americans seems to highly favor heavier vehicles like trucks regardless of propulsion types).

I won't argue that Americans favor heavier and larger vehicles (just compare models available in the US vs Europe). But it's also automakers shifting the market toward SUVs and larger trucks, because they have higher prices so they are able to increase the average selling price by favoring those vehicles.

 

[TigerNike23]

Tesla is getting hit pretty hard by horrible publicity and extremely negative perceptions of its CEO. That has suppressed their potential customer base and will likely lead to the entire company failing… unless Musk divests himself or sells it. Because he’s not going to suddenly become rational and effective.

Elon Musk’s reputation is falling — and it’s taking Tesla with it

Musk’s behavior may be contributing to Tesla’s declining sales.

www.theverge.com

Yeah, I wouldn’t want to be Tesla right now.

 

[omihek]

Couldn’t they have just released another dongle or polishing cloth to make up for the $$$?

Honestly couldn't wait to purchase my pair of $999 Windshield Wiper Pro Max Plus Ultra's

 

[gagaliya]

Meanwhile: Xiaomi released his first car… must be embarrassing for Apple…

Xiaomi is led by its founder, who is very hands on, idolizes Steve Jobs, and crazy focused on new product development. He is a household name in China and their products overall are highly regarded in China which is saying something given how ultra competitive it is over there.

Apple is led by a bean counter, who only cares about having a phone at every $100 price level and who couldn’t be further away from actual product design development. Apple car is a perfect example, thousands of people, billions of dollars, and zero direction / product, meanwhile all Tim Apple does is cycling through various leads on the project instead of actually getting his hands dirty and figure out what apple car should be. If Steve Jobs or Elon Musk was the ceo, the apple car would be on the road right now. And despite all the negativity, if Jony Ive stuck around, we would also have the apple car.

As soon as someone figure out a truly better phone or its replacement, apple is dead. And AI will very likely be that catalyst, just like the car apple is completely paralyzed without a clue what to do with AI integration, just panic buying AI companies and hook into google/openai to jam it into their phone to say they have some AI feature….

 

[Kottu]

600 employees got sacked and a dream project is cancelled. Only because, Apple failed to recruit a single person with determination.

 

[Beautyspin]

A cheap copy of a Tesla. It’s nice when you’re in a country that doesn’t enforce copyright laws

Any link to substantiate this? I have not seen a Tesla (Nor the Xiaomi car). Which of these features were copied from Tesla? Really asking out of curiosity.

The SU7 Max is powered by Xiaomi's own HyperEngine electric ..

The SU7 Max is powered by Xiaomi's own HyperEngine electric motors, which can rev up to 21,000rpm. This translates to a 0-100km/h acceleration time of just 2.78 seconds, beating even Tesla's Model S. The SU7 Max also boasts a long driving range ofutilizes00km (497 miles) on a single charge, according to Xiaomi. The car is built on Xiaomi's own Modena Architecture, which utilises a die-cast chassis with a clamping force of 9,100 tons, exceeding that of Tesla's vehicles.

The SU7 Max comes equipped with Xiaomi's HyperOS in-car entertainment system, powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8295 processor. The system boasts a fast boot time of just 1.49 seconds and allows you to control various aspects of the car, including media, seats, and even your Xiaomi smart home appliances, through the 16.1-inch 3K central touchscreen.

For rear-seat entertainment, the SU7 Max offers optional Xiaomi Pad tablets that can be mounted on magnetic ports behind the front headrests. These tablets can be charged wirelessly with up to 22.5W output. A 23-speaker Dolby Atmos sound system ensures an immersive audio experience for all passengers.

The SU7 Max is equipped with Xiaomi's Pilot autonomous driving platform, powered by up to two NVIDIA Drive Orin processors and an array of sensors, including a top-mounted Lidar with a visual range of up to 200 meters and pixel accuracy down to 0.1 meters.


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...ofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

 

[Beautyspin]

Apple has 160,000 employees.

So... percentage wise it's very small, especially compared to the mass layoffs of Amazon, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Microsoft, IBM, Meta, SAP, google, Zoom, Dell, UPS, T-Mobile, Cisco, Sony, PayPal, eBay, Spotify, Nokia, Qualcomm, Vodaphone, DocuSign, HP, Twitter, Intel, etc.

Well, we also do not know if this is the first of a long list of layoffs or the only layoffs that are going to happen. Maybe they are testing the waters or staggering the layoffs for some reason.

Just saying.

 

[Beautyspin]

Apple has demonstrated remarkable incompetence and lack of foresight, but perhaps they have created a thick patent portfolio to license out and to sue people.

Yup, become a patent troll.

 

[Beautyspin]

Sort of funny since Apple don’t seem to like paying others for THEIR patents

They pay their (Apple's) legal team instead.

 

[ApplesAreSweet&Sour]

Apple are not doing good enough IMO, weekly outages across its services, and now laying off several hundred staff after failed projects. They need to try much harder and stick to what they know.

Sticking to what they know is all they do lately.

All we ever get is spec bumps and endless product segmentation of hit products, like three “different” iPads, three “different” iPhones, three “different” Apple Watches, more Pencils, more AirPods etc., etc.

Wow, what innovative products -Three versions of the same product. But all except the most expensive one offer worse quality, value and specs.

Exactly what shareholders we need more of!

Then there’s AVP. But it’s too pricey and not useful enough in its current state to warrant a purchase for anyone but first movers and a small group of Apple super fans.

Apple car would never work because it would drive you off a cliff the moment it’s hyper advanced AI figures out your mom doesn’t use an iPhone.

Tim will be waving goodbye to you as you and your million dollar car are free falling while he’s mouthing his infamous catchphrase “buy your mom an iPhone!”.

👋

Goodbye, Apple Car!

 

[coolfactor]

Anyone who knows engineering knows that this was bound to happen. Apple sucks at engineering and inventing. That’s what their suppliers do.

Apple is great at marketing and branding. They use their enormous sales volume to get the best discounts from suppliers, but they always fail at hard, intellectual stuff.

This is just Apple admitting defeat and falling back to their strengths. They tried inventing and competing on the bleeding edge and got smacked in the face like an arrogant pompous kid who thinks he can be a math PhD and then gets humbled by Real Analysis. Leave the inventing to their suppliers. Focus on marketing and high sales volumes.

Couldn't disagree more. If you had any compehension of Apple's contributions to computing over the past 45 years, you'd feel very differently.

Yes, they've fallen into a very predictable "money machine" business model that plays it safe and iterates at the same pace as the industry, but they are -not- just buying off-the-shelf components to build their gear. The A- and M-series processors are evidence of that.

Over the course of the past 16 years, the iPhone may have changed only slightly on the outside in terms of visual design, but the innards have evolved massively, and we all enjoy the benefits of that. So many people equate vislbe changes with "innovation" and that couldn't be further from reality. Apple has innovated in so many "unseen" ways, and the entire industry benefits from that.

 

[steve09090]

According to who? You?



Apple’s suppliers build to Apple’s engineering specs.



Every company ever does that.



We don’t actually know why those projects failed but much of the reporting suggests lack of focused leadership was key.



1) No one claimed it wasn’t.

2) Apple does more than “make pretty rectangles.”



That is a flat out ridiculous thing to say.

I agree with most everything you say here, except possibly the leadership (who would know).

The way Apple work is they throw mud to the wall and see what sticks. I doubt enough mud would stick. I would suggest the biggest problem here is that they couldn't get a viable car company to work with them in the way they wanted. Car Manufacturers are used to working to a development production line, and definite time lines. Apple don't work that way.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

I never said all late comers are Tesla copies. There are many EV’s that aren’t similar to a Tesla. I just said this particular one was a cheap Tesla copy.

Which aspect comes off as a cheap Tesla copy? I’m not going to say the exterior not the interior are anything ground breaking, but it’s also not particularly similar to Teslas. If anything, it looks more like a cross between the BYD Seal and the Porsche Taycan.

It’s not surprising since Xiaomi has been copying Apple for years, so why not copy Tesla when it comes to cars? It’s their business model.

Xiaomi’s phones hasn’t looked like iPhones for years although their software continues to mimic iOS in many ways. Again, I’ve seen nothing ground breaking from them compared to other Android OEMs but they’ve long moved past their Apple clone era.

Not only was Tesla the first to mass produce EV‘s in the USA but to my knowledge, they’re the only company that is successful when it comes to selling electric vehicles. Sure other companies sell them, but with huge losses that are either covered by selling ICE vehicles like Ford or covered by billionaires with deep pockets. I would love to see a company other than Tesla that could successfully market an EV in the USA. This is a bit off topic from my original comment but still relevant I think.

The Nissan Leaf which first came out in 2009 is the first mass market EV that saw commercial success. It hasn’t sold nearly as fast as Teslas, but it has sold more than 1 million units at this point.

 

[CrysisDeu]

A cheap copy of a Tesla. It’s nice when you’re in a country that doesn’t enforce copyright laws

God damn I hope Xiaomi copied tesla. That would mean Tesla is actually worth buying.

 

[cicalinarrot]

We are witnessing a repeat of Xerox and the like from the 1970s. Apple continues to develop and innovate, but is no longer able to go to market with new products. Even in the 90s Apple was trying many different things.

I want them to prove me wrong.

I don’t know a lot about Xerox but Apple has spent a couple decades not just introducing products in different categories multiple times but basically creating those new categories.
Mp3 players, smartphones, ultrabooks, tablets, smart watches, bluetooth headphones… these were not interesting markets before Apple defined them. They almost didn’t exist.

Apple would have had to enter a pre-existing market, the hardest to join, the most dangerous one. Now, this would have been something totally unseen before.
Apple is still being consistent with their strategy: when they think they can create a new market, by offering something that redefines a small one and pushes it into mainstream, they go for it. That’s VR now.
Are they slowing down (and possibly failing)? Sure but we know they couldn’t push us to buy new kinds of gadgets forever.
With many of the products I’ve mentioned, they received pretty skeptical reactions on first gen (a laptop without DVD player? Who wants that?). I think not even Apple could handle that with a car but in doubt, they still tried to develop it.

 

[Alexfromaz]

Building back better.

 

[dampfnudel]

Hardly. Tesla is one of the first to market with a mass production EV, yes, but that hardly means late comers are all Tesla copies. There are lots of Chinese EVs sold in Europe and the fact that they haven’t been sued into the ground by existing players for patent infringement says a lot. That’s not to mention even lots of Teslas models are using Chinese EV battery tech.

Maybe Tesla has an unofficial agreement with Chinese companies that Tesla will buy their tech in exchange for them staying out of the US market.

 

[Macist]

Damnnnnn. That really blows.

I know someone relatively high up in the UK car industry and it’s an open secret that EVs are dead.

1. So expensive that at least 70% of motorists priced out.

2. Anger over real world range, especially with loads, even on premium models with impressive stats, compounded by the already poor battery life after two years.

3. Growing acknowledgement that overall carbon use can be worse than petrol cars, when everything considered—battery manufacture is massively more energy sapping than refining oil. EVs are scrapped far quicker too and recycling them is again energy sapping.

 

[DownUnderDan]

Maybe Tesla has an unofficial agreement with Chinese companies that Tesla will buy their tech in exchange for them staying out of the US market.

If its an "unofficial" agreement in China, you don't have an agreement at all. If its an "official" agreement, you have an agreement that can be broken by anyone who sees enough financial incentive to do so or when politically they are instructed to do so.