Shrouded in secrecy from the outset, and which continued for a decade before Apple’s car project came to light, ramping up, but ultimately met its demise: $10 billion spent and nothing to show but a sour taste for industry and shareholders, and a graveyard of ideas that ultimately never saw execution. But was Apple’s failure the shake-up the industry needed, and what exactly went wrong?
Spoiler alert: even tech giants eventually realize that autonomous driving proved to be too ambitious, and that the complex world of AI, paired with the real-life consequences of the motoring world, would take a lot longer to get right. But is there a silver lining for tech companies daring to venture down the same path, and what did Apple show us?
Late to the Party, but That Might Not Have Been a Bad Thing
There are two sides to this point: one is that the market already has too many players, and many of them are long-standing. How much of a takeover could Apple have expected entering the market this late, especially with something this complex? Should have gone for a simpler product? The other is the synthetic demand that was latent and waiting for a major market disruption to emerge. This has always been Apple’s mission objective, but this may have been the wrong approach. Leveraging an existing fan base, which might be akin to discipleship, was almost a given, much like Tesla did. There’s no question that type of synthetic demand could have been easily tapped into.
The timeline was shrouded in secrecy from approximately 2001 to 2014, during which very little was known about the project, apart from news of patents registered, key individuals employed, and licenses obtained, as well as prototype vehicles on the road. Then, in 2015, the lid was lifted, and “Project Titan” was revealed (Somewhat), much to the fascination of tech industry players and keen observers. Was the writing on the wall then? Was this all too much to achieve too late?
Autonomous Driving is Still a Dangerous Business
According to a report compiled by Craft Law Firm, which analyzed data from the NHTSA, there have been 3,979 accidents involving autonomous cars. And yes, a ramp-up in recent times is naturally due to more self-driving vehicles on the road. Vehicle manufacturers are obliged to submit accident data from 2019, and as a result, the actual number of underlying data is could well and truly be understated. Comforting, I know.
On an even more somber note, that report further acknowledges 83 deaths caused by self-driving car accidents. Grim indeed, but it is something to bear in mind with Apple, which ventured into this space much sooner, all those years ago, so you can appreciate just how challenging this space was. Venturing into the world of automotive class action suits and litigation is a precarious space for any automotive operator and manufacturer. The social responsibility alone would attract a lot of negative feedback and pushback. The mere presence of this risk alone is a testament to the bravery of Apple, even attempting to get this off the ground, let alone sustaining it for as long as they did.
No Smoke Without a Fire and Internal “Issues”
Yes, the age-old saying holds each time. The project had many strong players, but a clear direction seemed to be lacking. However, that is at least what the rumor mill produced. Despite key players being poached from Tesla, Ford, BMW, and Porsche, the blend between industry experts and Apple’s own managers makes it easy to understand that this type of mashup of field experts may have been a recipe for misalignment.
Just like in so many tech projects of grand scale, without a clear line of sight and direction, any road will get you there. What “there” is a failed project, scope creep, and blown budgets. This I’ve seen and lived through before. It can get messy real quick.
I’m not saying Apple or anyone was at fault here, given the tremendous uncertainty of autonomous driving at the time. The jury is out. Regardless, I understand why this may have caused internal issues, especially when you examine the staff rotation on the project. But hey, no one said it would be easy.
A Little Too Much Confidence
Any brand seeking to enter the automotive industry must do so at a significant cost. No one arrives at a polished product, even one that is tried and tested and already exists in a market, let alone something as challenging as autonomous driving. Even for stalwarts, was Apple wilfully negating the process of paying school fees that other manufacturers have paid? Was Apple just a little too confident? We’ve seen it before when brands decide to change lanes without the necessary due diligence. GoPro comes to mind, but ultimately, nothing ventured, nothing gained, and the world we live in was made by big thinking and incredibly wild ideas.
Sometimes those ideas are a bit too wild.
We know Apple as a brand has always pushed the envelope when it comes to technology, and we love them for it, but perhaps this wasn’t the type of game they should have approached more conservatively. It may have been better to curb the enthusiasm. The confidence that you could produce electronic devices and personal computers, and that you were absolute game changers in the process, does not apply to the motor industry, which is a very different playing field. As Apple came to realize. Confidence, we’ve learned, is good, but sometimes it runs a thin, blurry line between confidence and arrogance. And I love the brand.
You’ve Got to Crawl Before You Can Walk–The Ambition of Autonomous Driving
The murmurs centered on Apple being a little too ambitious at a time when autonomous driving is a challenging endeavor to perfect, even today. Ten years ago, it was exponentially more difficult. Consider the period between 2000 and 2015, when Apple was attempting to be, and you can appreciate just how much more challenging this must have been. Not impossible, but seriously challenging. To such an extent that many brands have put it on the back burner and opted for lower levels of autonomy. You need to crawl before you can walk.
Like Tesla, which introduced Autopilot in 2014, other brands adopted adaptive cruise control with lane correction, as well as lower-tiered autonomous features. This was the innovative approach that Apple did not take. “Too much to chew on” and “too soon” spring to mind, and while we’re talking about technology leaps and market disruptions, perhaps it was just too much to develop and get right at the time.
Does that mean fully autonomous driving is still a far-fetched concept? Not hardly, given that the lower levels reached years back were questioned in the same way we question fully autonomous driving, but objectives have been reached in industry. One thing that can be said is that similar questions were likely posed during the time of Henry Ford, when the horse was replaced by the car as the primary method of commuting. Was the backlash back then more extreme?
Apple’s failure on the project serves as a stark lesson to the tech industry, suggesting that you can’t buy your way to success, even with brilliant minds and in project management, even with a serious number of brilliant brains; sometimes, too many cooks do spoil the broth. No Apple pun intended there.
That, together with pushed-out deadlines, high staff turnover, and a very unclear directive, revealed a narrative that was quite the opposite of what we know Apple to be, which no doubt contributed to a shift in focus to generative AI initiatives instead of building an actual car.
The timing may have been off, but one can’t fault the ambition. All evidence suggests that autonomous driving was too complicated at the time to get it to point where things could work. Given more time and advancements in AI technologies, things could have worked; companies like Magna may have been able to get it right. In the end, even globally ambitious tech companies need to answer to their shareholders. When you’re not delivering value, it’s often cheaper to pull the plug and focus on something else, which Apple did. However, there are many instances of ‘would have/couldn’t but didn’t.’
