Apple’s long-rumored driverless car project, also known as Project Titan, has been shuttered. But the company didn’t announce its cancellation. In fact, Apple barely ever mentioned the secretive project despite laboring on it for nearly a decade.
Technology
Crash of the Titan: a short history of Apple’s doomed car project
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25310003/STK260_APPLE_CAR_CVirginia_A.jpg?ssl=1 "Crash of the Titan: a short history of Apple’s doomed car project")
Project Titan was obvious from the outside — from automotive industry hiring to heavily documented, public testing of self-driving cars, there was no way it could stay a secret. But the company still tried to preserve the mystery — when CEO Tim Cook was asked about the project on an investor call in 2016, he responded with cryptic talk about how exciting Christmas Eve is, adding that “it’s going to be Christmas Eve for a while.”
Now we know Cook’s Christmas never came. This week, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman broke the news that Apple will not be making a car, dashing the hopes of any Apple fan who dreamed of cruising around in a Jony Ive-designed roadster. But Apple’s car considerations go back a bit farther than 2014, the year early reports pegged the company’s first real moves to spin up Project Titan. A little over eight years ago, Nest founder Tony Fadell revealed that, while he was still at Apple, he and Steve Jobs had tossed around the idea for an Apple Car in 2008.
They agreed that, as cool as they thought that would be, Apple was just too busy. The company had only just released the iPhone — the iPad, Apple’s services business explosion, and Siri were still ahead of it.
But six years after Fadell and Jobs’ idle conversations, things were different. The company itself was the most valuable in the world, and its products were selling like hotcakes. Apple was full of momentum and growing fatter with cash every day, but there was no guarantee that its devices would keep the company expanding with their upward sales trajectory.
Looking down the line, Apple already had its hands, quite successfully, in so many pies — computers, phones, audio players, for instance, and it was preparing to launch its smartwatch and line of Bluetooth headphones. If it was going to light the world on fire again, it needed to go big with something — why, then, shouldn’t it make a car?
So began a nearly 10-year slog of sky-high expectations that even the world’s richest company couldn’t hope to meet. Apple has done a lot to push consumer electronics forward over the years. But nobody can do everything, and the Apple Car is as fine a cautionary tale about that as any.
The Apple Car project starts up
February 2015: The rumor mill starts cranking in earnest after a self-driving Dodge Caravan with chunky sensors adorning the roof is spotted driving around California’s San Francisco Bay Area. A CBS News story at the time finds it’s leased to Apple, which has no testing permit for driverless cars. Nevertheless, it sparks speculation that the company is making an autonomous car.
Within days, reports emerge that Apple has been heavily recruiting auto experts for what it calls “Project Titan,” a secret effort to make an all-electric self-driving car. Cook reportedly approved the plan a year prior, and the company has set a team of 1,000 people on it, led by former Ford engineer Steve Zadesky. Apple hopes to start selling the car in 2020.
But can Apple actually pull this off? Former GM CEO Dan Akerson is maybe a touch skeptical. He tells Bloomberg, “We take steel, raw steel, and turn it into a car. They have no idea what they’re getting into if they get into that.”
July 2015: Reports said that Cook visited BMW’s headquarters in 2014. He and other executives wanted to learn about how the company makes its cars, and were reportedly keenly interested in the i3, BMW’s tiny electric hatchback. It’s the first rumbling of potential partnerships between Apple and an automaker, but the Reuters report on the meetings suggests that their talks have already faded.
September 2015: The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple expects to ship its car in 2019, and has tripled the original 600-person team. This same month, the California DMV confirms that it recently met with Apple to go over the DMV’s autonomous vehicle regulations.
October 2015: Sources from Mission Motors, an electric motorcycle startup, claim the company was bankrupted by Apple’s aggressive poaching.
Fall of 2015: Cook and Jony Ive meet at the project’s headquarters in Sunnyvale for an odd demo of what riding in a Siri-powered car could be like. According to the New York Times:
The two men sank into the seats of a cabinlike interior. Outside, a voice actor read from a script of what Siri would say as the men zoomed down the road in the imaginary car. Mr. Ive asked Siri what restaurant they passed and the actor read an answer, said two people familiar with the demonstration.
Funny sounds under the hood
January 2016: Reports show that Apple, or at least a registrant claiming to be Apple, bought apple.cars and other, similarly automotive-themed domain names. But the first signs of trouble also appear as Zadesky departs Apple, leaving his post as head of the car project vacant.
April 2016: German outlet Handelsblatt reports that BMW / Daimler has given up on talks with Apple because Apple wants the platform to be built “into its own cloud software,” which apparently doesn’t sit well with BMW’s future strategy for customer data protection.
July 2016: Zadesky’s vacancy is filled by Bob Mansfield, Apple’s former hardware engineering boss, who had left the company’s executive team in 2013 but stayed on for special projects. At the same time, reports say the car is delayed to 2021, and that Mansfield has hired a former BlackBerry automotive software executive to focus on autonomous driving. Bloomberg reports that internally, employees are confused about Project Titan’s direction.
September 2016: Apple reportedly fires “dozens of employees” as it reconsiders its approach to the car project. Later that month, rumors circulate that Apple is thinking about buying British supercar company McLaren and self-balancing motorcycle startup Lit Motors. Neither ever happens.
October 2016: Apple has reportedly parked its plans to build its own car and will focus on creating self-driving software for other companies to use in their vehicles. Even so, Cook tosses a morsel to investors during an earnings call, saying that cars are “an area that it’s clear that there are a lot of technologies that will either become available or will be able to revolutionize the car experience.”
If Apple can’t make the car, maybe it can drive it?
April 2017: The California DMV gives Apple a permit to test-drive three 2015 Lexus RX 450h SUVs outfitted with autonomous driving tech. One of these cars is seen driving around Silicon Valley.
June 2017: Cook tells a Bloomberg interviewer that Apple is “focusing on autonomous systems,” calling it “the mother of all AI projects.” He repeats the same thing — almost verbatim — during an investor call in August 2017, but suggests it is about more than cars.
October 2017: The Apple Lexus SUV is spotted again, this time with its collection of sensors encased in white plastic, rather than the makeshift rig from the April sighting.
May 2018: Apple reportedly partners with Volkswagen to use its T6 Transporter vans as self-driving shuttles to cart around Apple employees, representing something of a back-to-basics approach. Apple has more autonomous test vehicles registered in California than Uber and Waymo combined, for the moment.
July 2018: Apple employee Xiaolang Zhang is arrested and accused of stealing the company’s trade secrets to bring back to a Chinese automotive company called XMotors. At the same time, The Washington Post reports that the company has 5,000 employees working on its car project either directly or indirectly.
August 2018: Someone rear-ends an Apple autonomous test vehicle that is trying to merge onto an expressway. The same month, Apple hires Doug Field, who’d previously left for Tesla in 2013, to help lead Project Titan.
January 2019: Project Titan shrinks as Apple shuffles 200 of its workers to “support machine learning and other initiatives” elsewhere in the company. Also, another Apple employee is arrested for allegedly stealing trade secrets.
June 2019: Apple buys autonomous driving startup Drive.ai, a company that was founded four years earlier by Stanford University researchers and that ran a small self-driving shuttle service in Texas. The move is seen as an instance of “acqui-hiring” to gain access to the startup’s small team of AV engineers.
November 2019: Jony Ive leaves Apple. While he may not have been fully hands-on with the Apple Car project, he did reportedly give lots of input, including that the car shouldn’t have a steering wheel.
February 2020: Data shows that Apple had logged fewer autonomous testing miles in 2019 than 2018 — by over 70,000 miles, in fact. Which isn’t great, since it put down 79,745 miles in 2018.
Then again, maybe Apple can make a car
December 2020: Apple reportedly shifts oversight of its car project to John Giannandrea, who’s been heading up Siri and artificial intelligence for the company since 2018. The same month, reports suggest that Apple is, once again, considering building its own car.
February 2021: But it’s hard for Apple to make friends. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo corroborates other rumors suggesting that the company is working with Hyundai on an electric car. Later that month, Hyundai and Kia downplay the rumor, saying that they are no longer in talks to do so. Nissan also issues a statement, saying it isn’t discussing a car project with Apple.
September 2021: Field leaves Apple to work for Ford. Two days later, the company reportedly puts Apple Watch executive Kevin Lynch in charge of its car ambitions, under COO Jeff Williams rather than Giannandrea.
October 2021: Foxconn shows off three electric car prototypes under the brand “Foxtron.” Although the company isn’t planning to build cars itself, it’s interesting that the company most responsible for assembling Apple’s iPhones has been apparently developing an EV platform to sell to automakers.
November 2021: Apple hires another former Tesla employee, Christopher Moore, to work on self-driving software for the company.
June 2022: Some of Apple’s work bears fruit at WWDC 2022 when it debuts the next-gen version of Apple CarPlay, designed to take over the entire dash of a car. The company also announces several partners, including Ford, Audi, Jaguar-Land Rover, and Nissan. (To date, it isn’t in any cars.)
July 2022: The struggles of Project Titan are laid out in a report from The Information that claims Apple software boss Craig Federighi was “particularly skeptical” of it, and that employees outside of the project regularly mocked it. The report also said that a test vehicle nearly hit a jogger earlier in 2022.
The Information details some design possibilities for the car as well, including that the company sought the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s blessing to create a car that had no traditional steering wheel or brake pedal, and that Ive had advised the design team to “lean into the weirdness of the vehicle’s design and not try to hide its sensors.”
October 2022: Foxconn again unveils EV prototypes, this time a crossover and a pickup truck. This time, the company says it wants to become a Tesla supplier.
Easing off the gas pedal
December 2022: Apple yet again scales back its plans for the car to have less ambitious self-driving capabilities than it originally planned. Also, the company is apparently targeting a sub-$100,000 price tag for the vehicle and has now moved its launch plans back to 2026.
December 2023: After a slow year in Apple Car news, Apple announces that Porsche and Aston Martin would incorporate bespoke versions of the dashboard-wide next-gen CarPlay infotainment system.
January 2024: Project Titan suffers two heavy blows as Apple reportedly pushes the car’s launch back two more years to 2028. Shortly thereafter, hardware executive DJ Novotney, who was ostensibly instrumental in starting Titan, leaves to work for Rivian.
February 2024: Signs of life! The California DMV records show that Apple logged nearly half a million miles of autonomous driving throughout most of 2023 — significantly more than the year before
But that was 2023. On February 27th, 2024, Bloomberg reports that the Apple Car is, after 10 years and billions spent, not to be. Rest in peace, little buddy.
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Microsoft closed out Summer Game Fest with a bang. The company’s annual June showcase was packed with crowd-pleasers: Halo, Gears of War, Fable, a translucent Xbox, and even some pleasant surprises like new Persona and Crazy Taxi games. It was the kind of event that harkened back to the boisterous days of E3, when the industry was in a healthier place and game reveals were cultural events.
Just three days after the showcase, new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma warned of a “reset” at Microsoft’s gaming division, which would require “making hard choices.” The weeks that followed were filled with reports of impending layoffs, studio closures, and game cancellations. Ninja Theory is reportedly one of the studios on the chopping block, despite having just revealed a new game at SGF. If all this comes to pass, Xbox will be a shell of its former self.
After muscling its way into the console space nearly 25 years ago, Microsoft’s gaming division is at its lowest point ever. And the fallout from some disastrous decisions is going to get very ugly in the coming weeks and months.
It wasn’t always this way. With the arrival of the original Xbox in 2001, Microsoft seemed poised to be a viable contender in the space, with all of its resources helping it play catch-up with the likes of Sony and Nintendo. Major exclusives like Halo and a prescient foray into online play through Xbox Live helped to solidify this position for a time. But Microsoft flubbed the launch of the Xbox One in 2013 with an ill-fated push into non-gaming features like TV, and the brand has never really recovered. With the oft-confusing Xbox Series X / S generation, the company only fell further behind.
There are many reasons for this, but arguably the most damning was Microsoft’s extremely expensive push into subscription services. On paper it made some sense: Streaming services like Netflix were upending the film and TV landscape, so maybe the same could happen for gaming. Microsoft made some absolutely gigantic bets on this unproven future, spending billions of dollars to acquire studios and publishers in an attempt to build out a large library of content for Game Pass that would lure subscribers.
And while Game Pass proved popular initially, it ultimately plateaued, which meant that Microsoft spent all of that money on a business that didn’t grow anywhere near as large as it expected. (The service currently has around 30 million subscribers, while Microsoft had hoped to hit 100 million by 2030.) This misguided play also coincided with the “This is an Xbox” marketing campaign, which suggested that Xbox wasn’t a single console but rather a suite of Game Pass-capable devices, leading to even more confusion around the brand.
Just how bad are things? As Sharma and Xbox’s chief content officer Matt Booty wrote in the “reset” memo, “Excluding Activision Blizzard King, over the past five years, we have spent over $20 billion on ongoing investments in our content, platform, and hardware subsidy, but our annual revenue has declined nearly half a billion during that time. Going forward, this cannot continue.” The Activision deal, meanwhile, cost $68.7 billion. The company spent all of that money just to make it even less clear what an Xbox is.
This past February, there was a major shake-up at the Xbox division. Former boss Phil Spencer, who oversaw the brand through the Game Pass push and its many costly acquisitions, retired, while former president and COO Sarah Bond left the company. Despite some uncertainty around her lack of experience in the world of gaming — her prior role at Microsoft was head of the CoreAI division — Sharma’s early days provided some cause for optimism. She appeared willing to listen to fans on things like backward compatibility and exclusives, scrapped the unpopular Microsoft Gaming branding in favor of just Xbox, and moved the brand away from controversial AI features. She also made some strange and superficial changes, like restyling Xbox as XBOX.
But it’s clear the issues at Xbox run much deeper than a simple name change can fix. Sharma inherited a business that spent colossal amounts of money and had little to show for it, and now the bill is coming due. What makes this especially tragic is the sheer pedigree of the game studios that are being impacted. My colleague Tom Warren reported that Microsoft was mulling over closing at least five studios, which includes the likes of Arkane — best known for the wildly influential Dishonored series — and Double Fine Productions, a beloved team behind cult hits like Psychonauts, and more recently Keeper and Kiln. That’s multiple teams filled with talented individuals responsible for some of the most notable games ever made. Now they’re being discarded because of poor decisions they had no part in.
But even amid this apocalyptic landscape, Xbox’s issues feel particularly existential. Its hardware and subscription businesses are both faltering, and now it’s decimating its game development teams as well. Tom reported that the impending layoffs are expected to start next week, and it’s not clear yet just how widespread they will be. Part of the uncertainty is that we don’t know exactly what will happen to these studios; some may be hit with layoffs, some may be closed entirely, and some may be spun off as independent entities.
Whatever happens, though, Xbox will look drastically different once it’s all over. And given the dire state of console gaming, these might not even be the last changes for Microsoft’s gaming division.
- Sharma has done a lot of work to clean up the messaging around Xbox, but plenty of confusion remains, particularly when it comes to the company’s console exclusivity strategy.
- At the same time the Xbox is struggling, a new player is entering the space, as Valve launches the console-like Steam Machine.
- As always, Nintendo largely operates in its own parallel universe that has allowed it to largely weather the current storm.
- Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier has done some excellent reporting on the turmoil at Xbox, and has also helpfully condensed everything into a video on his YouTube channel.
- Matthew Ball is Xbox’s new strategy officer, and in an interview with The Game Business he explained how the brand is thinking about the next console, currently codenamed “Project Helix.”
- Speaking of execs, Booty talked to Game Informer following the SGF showcase to try and explain Xbox’s ever-changing strategy around exclusives, saying that “We want there to be a reason to believe and a reason to buy Xbox.”
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Pudu Robotics has announced what it calls the first “full-scenario robot-serviced hotel.” The project will use robots across the entire guest experience, from reception and room service to cleaning, food preparation and guest support.
The hotel is set to open in 2027, with trial rooms and robot-powered services expected to begin in late 2026. Early guests will be able to try robot check-in and autonomous in-room delivery before the full launch.
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COULD THE NEXT CHINESE THREAT WALK INTO YOUR KITCHEN ON TWO BATTERY-POWERED LEGS?
Pudu Robotics says its robot-run hotel will use AI-powered machines across check-in, room service, cleaning and guest support. (Pudu Robotics)
Where the robot-run hotel will be located
The hotel will sit on West Artificial Island, a man-made island tied to the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link in Guangdong Province. That cross-sea bridge and tunnel project is one of the Pearl River Delta’s biggest transportation projects.
The location feels fitting. Shenzhen already has a reputation as one of China’s major technology hubs. Room-service delivery robots are already common in hotels across many large Chinese cities.
However, this project goes much further. Instead of adding a few robots to assist hotel staff, Pudu wants to create a connected robot service system that can handle the entire guest experience.
What robots will do inside the hotel
The planned hotel will include 44 high-end rooms, a restaurant, a gym and other guest spaces. Robots will take on roles across the property, including reception, room service, cleaning, food preparation and guest support.
That means you could check in with a robot, have luggage delivered by a robot and order drinks from your phone without calling the front desk. Then, cleaning robots would handle waste detection and room upkeep using AI.
Pudu says its robots will work from one shared intelligence framework. In other words, different machines will handle different jobs while staying connected through the same software system.
The robot staff behind the scenes
Pudu’s FlashBot will run an intelligent vending system, allowing guests to order drink deliveries by smartphone. The PUDU T300 will move luggage from the lobby to rooms.
Meanwhile, the PUDU CC1 Pro and PUDU MT1 cleaning robots will handle cleaning tasks using AI waste-detection technology.
At the Shenzhen launch event, BellaBot Pro served coffee while KettyBot Pro delivered refreshments and snacks. That kind of robotic service may still surprise many travelers. In Shenzhen, though, it already fits into a broader tech culture where robot baristas and drone food delivery are becoming more visible.
HUMANOID ROBOTS WORK NONSTOP IN PACKAGE TEST
Guests will be able to try robot check-in and autonomous in-room delivery during the hotel’s first public trial in late 2026. (Pudu Robotics)
How AI will run the hotel experience
The hotel will rely on PuduFM 1.0, the company’s embodied intelligence foundation model. It will also use PuduAgent to manage intelligent operations across the hotel.
“This partnership represents an important step toward large-scale deployment of embodied intelligence in premium hospitality environments,” said Cong Guo, co-founder and CTO of Pudu Robotics.
He also said the project gives the company a chance to explore new service models where AI and robotics work together to deliver connected service experiences.
That may sound ambitious, yet the rollout will be gradual. The first public trial is expected in late 2026. A broader hotel opening is planned for 2027.
Why China is moving fast with robot hospitality
China has already embraced service robots in hotels, restaurants, airports and public spaces. The robot-run hotel takes that trend into a more advanced phase.
Shenzhen Culture & Tourism Industry Development will work with Pudu Robotics to turn West Artificial Island into a robotics and technology destination. The hotel is only one part of that larger plan.
Over the next four years, the island is expected to add more robotics across tourism and hospitality. That could turn the area into a testing ground for how travelers react when robots handle nearly every service touchpoint.
The hotel is planned as a connected robot service system where different machines handle luggage, deliveries, cleaning and hospitality tasks. (Pudu Robotics)
What this means for you
If this hotel works well, it could change what you expect from travel in the future. Faster check-in, automated deliveries and round-the-clock service may sound convenient, especially when you arrive late or need something quickly.
However, there is another side to this. A robot-run hotel also raises questions about jobs, privacy, safety and what kind of hospitality guests actually want.
Some travelers may love the speed and efficiency. Others may miss the warmth of a person who can read the room, handle a strange request or help when something goes wrong.
That is where this project becomes important. It may show whether people are ready for hotels where AI handles the stay from start to finish.
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Kurt’s key takeaways
China’s first robot-run hotel feels like a major test of how far hospitality automation can go. We have already seen delivery robots roll through hotel hallways. Yet this project puts robots at the center of the entire stay. The convenience could be impressive. You could check in, order drinks, receive luggage and get room support without waiting on a busy front desk. For travelers who value speed, that may feel like a win. Still, hospitality has always been about more than efficiency. A great hotel stay often comes from small human moments. A kind greeting, a helpful suggestion or a quick fix when something goes sideways can make a trip feel easier.
If a robot-run hotel can give you faster service, would you miss the human touch or happily skip the front desk altogether? Let us know by writing to us at CyberGuy.com.
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The Swift Observatory was launched in 2004, but recent solar storms have pushed its orbit lower, and it’s in danger of burning up in Earth’s atmosphere as soon as this year. To try and stave off its demise, NASA has enlisted Katalyst Space Technologies. The company’s Link spacecraft launched Friday with the goal of intercepting Swift, which has no propulsion system, and boosting its orbit back to its original position. Right now, Swift is circling at an altitude of 224 miles, and Link is aiming to raise that by about 150 miles.
Using a three-armed spacecraft to lift a satellite 150 miles higher into orbit is challenging enough, but the speed with which Katalyst pulled the mission together makes it even more impressive. NASA required the company to rush the job because Swift would be too low to save by October. $30 million and nine months later, help is on the way for the $500 million Swift.
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