On February 28, Beijing time, Bloomberg said that Apple had decided to cancel a decade-long plan to build a car. Apple's chief operating officer, Jeff Williams, and Kevin Lynch, Apple's vice president in charge of the car-building program, announced the decision internally on Tuesday, according to people familiar with the matter. Apple's abrupt decision surprised nearly 2,000 employees involved in the car-building project. It is reported that some employees will be transferred to the machine learning and AI department to switch to generative AI projects; In addition, hundreds of hardware and automotive engineers have the opportunity to apply to work in other project teams; At the same time, layoffs are also possible.
So why is Apple abandoning a decade-long billion-dollar car-building project? What do Chinese car bigwigs think of Apple's move? Is it really worth it for Apple to give up building cars for AI? 
The twists and turns of the dream of building a carWhat is less known is that Apple's dream of building a car actually originated with Steve Jobs.
In the summer of 2008, Steve Jobs, who had just finished releasing the iPhone 3G, revealed his dream of building a car to ** and his colleagues for the first time, "We have a platform to design a car, and we want to build a car in the near future." ”
Unexpectedly, three years later, a generation of geniuses passed away suddenly. Fortunately, his dream of building a car was inherited by his successor.
In the summer of 2014, three years after Jobs' death, his **man Cook secretly approved an ambitious plan called "Titan". According to the original idea, Apple was going to build a fully self-driving electric car, and the steering wheel and pedals were eliminated. If the plan is successful, Apple is expected to make ten more apples.
In order to realize this grand plan, Apple gave full play to its best "money ability", poached from Google, Mercedes-Benz, Tesla and other companies, and formed a core team with Silicon Valley and automobile industry genes. At its peak, the project had more than 5,000 R&D personnel. However, the Titan project did not go as smoothly as Cook expected, and due to Apple's repeated swings in the route and direction of the car, the executives involved in the Titan project left a large number of people, and the project was stalled several times. According to incomplete statistics, Apple's car-making project has replaced at least 5 people in charge. As early as the beginning of the "Titan Project", the project leader Steve Zadesky and then Apple's design director Jonathan Ivey had a "line" disagreement. The former wants Apple to develop a car product with semi-autonomous driving capabilities. But apparently, he failed. At the end of 2015, Zadesky chose to leave.
Half a year later, retired Apple executive Bob Mans Field made a comeback and restarted Titan. However, Bobmans Field paused Apple's vehicle development to focus on fully self-driving software instead. At the time, Apple said in a letter to the U.S. Department of Transportation that Apple would not build cars like Tesla, but would focus on research and development of self-driving software technology. And it is reported that Apple's goal is to develop the highest level of L5 - "full self-driving". In April 2017, Apple received a license from the California DMV to conduct tests on public roads. After WWDC 2017, Cook told the company that it was "focusing on automated systems," which he described as "a core technology" and "the mother of all AI projects."
But a year later, in August, Apple's self-driving car experienced its first crash on the road. A test car was rear-ended by a Nissan Leaf while merging on a highway, with both vehicles suffering "moderate damage". In the same year, Doug Field, Apple's former vice president of Mac hardware engineering, who was hailed as a hardware genius, returned to Apple from Tesla to lead the Apple car team. He quickly laid off the Titan team of about 200 people and refocused on building cars as a top priority.
In February 2019, data from California's DMV showed that Apple's self-driving test platform performed the worst in terms of disengagement among the testers allowed. And the official report also revealed that in 2019, Apple's 66 cars drove only 7,544 miles.
In the midst of stumbling, Apple's car-building plan came to 2020, but things didn't go well. This year, Doug Field officially retired from the stage of Apple's car-making, and the baton was handed over to John Giannandrea, the former head of Google search and artificial intelligence. But the good times didn't last long, and in just one year, it was in the hands of Kevin Lynch, the head of the Apple Watch and Health app. He made it clear that he hopes the car project will have a clearer and more urgent goal, including the launch of fully autonomous vehicles as early as 2025.
But apparently, people at that time underestimated the technical difficulty of fully autonomous driving, and a large number of autonomous driving companies focusing on L4 and L5 fell into a trough and went bankrupt, and some of them even turned to L2 development. Sure enough, last month, Apple announced that the "Titan Project" was postponed again, not only lowering the vehicle's autonomous driving level from L4 to L2+, but also postponing the release date by another two years to 2028. In contrast, at that time, the new Chinese car-making force that started at the same time as Apple had already completed mass production, and even iterated its products for several rounds. Even Jia Yueting, who lost to the United States, has delivered nearly 20 FF91s.
Although it has been repeatedly postponed, people never expected that Apple would directly give up "building a car" this time. In this way, thirteen years after Jobs' death, his "Apple car dream" came to the time of awakening.
The rim boss has something to sayIn addition to the 2,000 Apple employees, there are also a number of car bigwigs who were shocked by the news that Apple had given up building cars.
Musk expressed his attitude for the first time. He celebrated Apple's move by posting a saluting emoji and a cigarette on X. Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt posted an analysis of Apple's reasons for abandoning car manufacturing, and said that there are only two car companies in the United States that have never gone bankrupt, one is Ford and the other is Tesla. Musk replied, "Bankruptcy is the norm for a car company. ”
This can't blame Musk for gloating, because it's really Apple that is unkind first. Back then, Apple's "Titan Project" poached a lot of people from Tesla. According to reports, by the end of 2019, Apple had poached more than 300 talents from Tesla.
It is reported that Apple pays technicians, software and manufacturing engineers 1 of Tesla5 times, this salary is obviously attractive. At that time, Musk was particularly annoyed, he said, "Apple is Tesla's graveyard", "If you don't succeed at Tesla, you go to work at Apple!" ”
In fact, this is not the first time Musk has gloated. As early as December 2022, when Musk heard the news that Apple was about to produce a new car using a new power battery by 2024, he jokingly told Reuters, "In the most difficult stage of the Model 3 production ramp-up, I once hoped to sell Tesla to Apple at only one-tenth of the current market value." "But as it turned out, Cook didn't see me at all. Unlike Musk, Lei Jun, known as Rebus, posted on Weibo as soon as he heard that Apple had given up making cars: "I was shocked to see the news that Apple had given up making cars. Lei Jun also said that Xiaomi's strategy is "the whole ecology of people, cars and families", although he knows the difficulty of building a car, he still made an extremely firm strategic choice 3 years ago.
Lei Jun's brother He Xiaopeng expressed regret, "Last year, it was also discussed that all new entrants in the automotive industry will be released in 2024, but except for Apple." The decade after 2024 will lead to the playoffs and All-Star breaks. But I didn't expect Apple to come out with such a card in 2024. ”
Also sorry for Apple is Deng Chenghao, CEO of Deep Blue Automobile, who hopes that "Apple will insist on it again". He posted, "It's easy to build a tram that can run, it's hard to build a good tram, and it's even harder ......to build a good tram that consumers applaud."Apple insisted on persevering. ”
In contrast, Li Xiang, the CEO of Li Xiang, which has recently become the first new power car company with a revenue of 100 billion yuan, is very supportive of Apple giving up making cars. He said that Apple's decision to abandon car manufacturing and focus on artificial intelligence is an absolutely correct strategic choice, and the timing is also appropriate. Li Xiang believes that artificial intelligence will become the top-level entrance to all devices, services, applications, and transactions, and it is Apple's battle. Artificial intelligence remains a sine qua non for the success of automobiles. The electrification of cars is the first half, and artificial intelligence is the final. 
It is worth noting that Li Xiang also said a few days ago that "the competition of smart electric vehicles will form a head concentration pattern." In the new energy vehicle market of more than 200,000 yuan, the top three brands will eat up 70% of the market share in the fourth quarter of this year. According to external analysis, the three brands he mentioned are ideal, Wenjie, and Tesla, and it is obvious that Apple cars are not in his consideration. As a fellow countryman of Lei Jun and He Xiaopeng, and also a shareholder of Nezha Automobile, Zhou Hongyi is as optimistic about Apple's switch to AI as Li Xiang. He said that Apple's dream of building a car in the past ten years has been shattered, and technology giants are taking advantage of the trend to do all in AI. Apple's cancellation of car manufacturing is also to "all in AI". 
Like Tesla, Jiyue Automobile, which takes the pure visual route, recently said that it can be driven all over the country in Jiyue Intelligent Driving, and its CEO Xia Yiping said when commenting on Apple's abandonment of car manufacturing, "Focusing on AI must be the most correct choice!" Artificial intelligence is the decisive battle of the endgame in the tech world! But assuming Jobs is still at the helm, will Apple handle it differently? For example, Apple + Ford, this cooperation model of top AI + advanced manufacturing may be the best solution for landing AI applications! ”
Liu Tao, co-CEO of Zhiji Auto, also believes that AI is the future. He said, "Apple's cancellation of the car is really surprising and reasonable. He also said, "Apple's products in the past have always been a perfect blend of extreme aesthetics and extreme technology......Apple is concentrating its resources on generative AI, which is also the underlying competitiveness of smart cars in the second half. ”
Of course, there are also some car companies that take this opportunity to play marketing memes. For example, on the night when Apple announced that it would abandon car manufacturing, Chery iCar 03 was officially launched in China. Some netizens said, "The icar you want is here." "After all, Apple did not win China's Chery for the ICAR trademark back then. The day after Apple announced that it would give up building cars, Li Xiang warmed up MEGA in the circle of friends, with the text: "If Jobs is here, Apple cars should be like this." Unfortunately, Jobs couldn't argue with that.
Overall, China's automakers maintain respect and understanding for Apple's abandonment of car manufacturing, and at the same time express optimism and support for its switch to AI.
Is Apple doing it wrong? There has been too much online and offline analysis of why Apple, which holds $162 billion in cash reserves, still gives up building cars and turns to AI.
Some people say that it is because China's electric smart cars are already leading the world, so that Apple cannot make a "non-mediocre" car. After all, there are iMac, iPod, and iPhone jewels in front, if it is just a copy of Tesla and Porsche, Apple is not Apple; Some people also say that it is because it is not only difficult to build a car, but also the profit is too small, which is far less profitable than AI; Some people also say that it is because of the disagreement within Apple and the lack of resolute implementation of ......the lineDespite the mixed opinions, it seems to be positive for Apple's decision. At midday Eastern time on February 7, U.S. stocks fell nearly 09% of Apple's stock price continued to rise, rising more than 1% after midday, and as of **, Apple reported 182$63 shares, up 081%, market capitalization 282 trillion dollars.
Capital is the smartest, and it is always on the side of making the right choice. With the advent of technologies such as ChatGPT, almost every big tech company, including Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, is actively developing and deploying AI technology. Microsoft and Google were the first to release large models and AIGC products, which caused the stock prices of the two companies to rise by nearly 70% in the past year, with Microsoft's stock price once surpassing Apple's.
This is obviously something that Apple cannot accept and cannot afford, it must enter AI and it must be more focused. The huge user and developer ecosystem formed by its 2 billion devices and their users is undoubtedly an advantage that other giants do not have.
Therefore, the outside world also expects that Apple's "all in" can bring a different future to "AI".