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One whole decade's worth of effort was flushed down the drain when Apple revealed on Tuesday, February 27, that their planned electric car project was being scrapped. Bloomberg reported that the news came as a surprise to the estimated 2000 employees working on the project. The outlet also reported that most of the employees would be shifted to the company's artificial intelligence division.
Many social media users trolled the billion-dollar company and talked about how much money the company lost after putting effort into the project for ten years. A few others saw this as a huge win for Elon Musk and Tesla, as one X user commented:
Social media user trolls Apple for pulling the plug on its electric car project
Bloomberg reported that Apple has scrapped its electric car project after ten years of efforts. The outlet called the project one of the most ambitious ones in the company's history. According to the outlet, the announcement was made internally on Tuesday, February 27, and it reportedly came as a surprise to the around 2000 employees who were working on the project.
VP of the scrapped project, Kevin Lynch, and COO Jeff Williams shared the news with the employees. A lot of the employees who worked on the Special Projects Group in charge of the electric car will now be transferred to the artificial intelligence division, led by John Giannandrea, and will continue to work on the company's generative AI projects.
Bloomberg also reported that the winding down of the division will lead to layoffs, but it is unclear how many. Apple began work on the project in 2014, aiming to build a completely autonomous electric vehicle with interiors like a limo and voice-guided navigation.
However, the project was riddled with a plethora of leadership and strategy changes. Even now, the vehicle is still years away from production.
Once news hit that Apple's electric car project was winding down, social media users immediately began to speculate about the amount of resources wasted over the ten-year span that the project was active. A few social media users claimed that they saw this coming. Here are a few X reactions to the iPhone maker's revelation.
Once Tesla CEO Elon Musk caught wind of the news, he took a dig at Apple by simply tweeting out "🫡 🚬." Elon's comments section was filled with users applauding the Tesla boss and trolling Tim Cook's company. A plethora of social media users saw this as a huge win for Musk.
Bloomberg reported that the car was most recently valued at $100,000, but executives were concerned about the product not being able to achieve Apple's usual product margins.
Some were even concerned about wasting resources on a project that might not see the light of day at all. Another factor in the closure of the project is the dwindling EV market, whose sales growth noticeably decelerated in 2023.
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