Apple has reportedly elected to shelve its autonomous car plans, and has given its software team up until late 2017 to produce a feasible system.
Apple’s autonomous car initiative – known as Project Titan – has been the source of some weird and wonderful headlines; ranging from the entertaining fact that the project was keeping neighbors awake all the way through to its first published patent which depicted a bus with tank treads.
Unfortunately, the good times won’t last forever; Apple has reportedly shelved its plans to produce an autonomous car. While that doesn’t include the software component behind the project, it has left Apple engineers with up until late 2017 to produce a feasible self-driving car system.
No pressure.
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The project’s internal shift was reportedly seen Apple let go of 120 software engineers, while the remaining 1,000 employed staff have been directed to work on autonomous programs such as ‘vision sensors’ and simulators for testing the platform in real-world environments.
The project’s lead has often been in jeopardy, as well – Steve Zadesky stepped down as director of the project earlier his year, where Apple’s engineering chief Dan Riccio took over until Apple executive Bob Mansfield took the reigns.
Reportedly, it was Mansfield who has changed the project’s direction. An anonymous Apple employee cited that “Mansfield took the stage in a Silicon Valley auditorium packed with hundreds of Titan employees to announce the strategy shift, according to people who attended the meeting. Mansfield explained that he had examined the project and determined that Apple should move from building an outright competitor to Tesla Motors Inc. to an underlying self-driving platform.”
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What are your thoughts on the future of Apple’s autonomous car program? Can Apple’s engineers successfully produce a feasible self-driving system before the end of 2017? Be sure to share your opinion in the comments below!
Follow Bryan Smith on Twitter: @bryansmithSA
