Will Power Versus Wheel Power: Apple Moves Out More Than 200 Staff From Autonomous Car Project, In Mission Downsize

Apple sent out more than 200 employees from its electric car project to various other parts of the company on Thursday (24 January), Hans India reports. The employees have been shifted from the project ‘Titan’ as they want the team to focus on Machine Learning (ML) initiatives.

An Apple spokesman was quoted by CNBC as saying, “We have an incredibly talented team working on autonomous systems and associated technologies at Apple. As the team focusses on several key areas for 2019, some groups are being moved to projects in other parts of the company where they will support ML and other initiatives, across all of Apple”.

In August last year, it was reported that Apple had appointed former Tesla Engineering V-P Doug Field to lead the team of Project Titan. While initial reports expected the company to manufacture the cars themselves, recent reports are suggesting that Apple is more interested in the technology behind it rather than making the cars.

Analysts Jahanara Nissar and KC Rajkumar from Toronto-based Lynx Equity Strategies believe that Apple may spend less on self-driving car projects and other projects due to the reduction in iPhone sales, UberGizmo reports.

Back in 2016, the tech giant had downsized from the same group to shift strategy, and the fully self-driving cars remained in the experimental stage for its rivals like Waymo, Cruise and Tesla.

Currently, Apple’s self-driving programmes include Lexus RX450h SUV. Each of them reportedly come with huge racks of the Lidar radar-guided direction system and cameras.

Apple, in May 2018, had 55 self-driving cars and 83 drivers, enabling it to reach second highest in the number of such vehicles in California following General Motor’s (GM) Cruise, which had 104 cars.