More Apple Car details revealed, including failed Tesla and McLaren purchases

The Apple Car has become one of the most mysterious projects of the American company. This has been said countless times over the past decade, although never officially. The company has never publicly confirmed its existence. But this was an open secret.

However, in recent days The project was finally cancelled. Apple did not make any public statements, but held a meeting with employees of the division to inform them of this decision, which eventually reached the ears of the press.

Over these ten years, Apple Car has gone through different stages. But many of the subtleties of this process were revealed only this Thursday, when Bloomberg published a detailed article with information from sources close to the company.

Apple wanted to buy Tesla and McLaren

Almost at the very beginning of the “Titan” project – that’s what Apple Car was called internally – a company from Cupertino He even held talks with Elon Musk about acquiring Tesla.. Then the panorama was very different from today. It was 2014, Tim Cook had barely been running the company for three years, and Tesla had just released the Model S, its second electric car. Its market capitalization was about $30 billion, a fraction of its value today.

However, this was not the only purchase that Apple considered for the development of its Apple Car. Bloomberg, the company was close to acquiring McLarenone of the most recognizable brands in the automotive world, but focused on luxury and high-performance cars.

Possible agreements with Mercedes-Benz and Ford, among other brands, to produce the Apple Car.

During the development of the Apple Car, the company was also very close to conclude a cooperation agreement with Mercedes-Benz, one of the most iconic brands in the industry. However, the negotiations failed.

In accordance with BloombergMercedes-Benz would make the Apple car, but also wanted to use the autonomous driving platform that the Americans were preparing for your own cars. At some point, Apple executives began to believe that it would be possible to bring the car to life on their own – and therefore without having to transfer their technology to the Germans as part of the deal. This vision ended in a breakdown in negotiations.

Bloomberg He also claims that Apple has talked about possible areas of cooperation with other brands, including Ford. A fact that is not really surprising since Apple Car has already had many dance partners in the past.

At the beginning of 2021, Hyundai itself publicly confirmed that it was in talks with Apple regarding the production of the Apple Car. And in the same days, the famous analyst Ming-Chi Kuo also assured that Apple was talking with other companies such as the PSA group – now Stellantis – or General Motors. However, none of these agreements appear to have been implemented.

2020 Apple Car prototype

In addition to possible agreements and purchases of other companies, Bloomberg also shows that Apple released a prototype in 2020 his car, known within the company as A loaf of bread, which translates to “loaf of bread” in Spanish.

This Apple Car prototype consisted of a small van capable of carrying four people. As described by the aforementioned media, it had a full glass roof, sliding doors and wheels with white sidewalls. It will also feature a giant television screen, a high-performance sound system and seats that recline like those found on private jets. The approach is, at least conceptually, similar to that of the luxury Lexus LM.

Control your car with a remote control, an iPhone app, or remotely.

Mark GurmanBloomberg) Also assures What Apple had some plans in case the Apple Car’s self-driving system failed. Among them is a video game controller that can be used to control a vehicle, which, surprisingly, Sony showed off in prototype form at the last CES.

The other two options were to run iPhone app this allowed you to control the car from your mobile phone or from a control center from which Apple could control your car remotely.

Employee Relocations, Layoffs, and Sale of Arizona Test Site

Apple car never became a reality despite major investments which the company has accomplished over the past decade. Some sources point to indecisiveness on the part of management and difficulties in the auto industry, among other reasons, as decisive factors in the failure of ambitious goals set for autonomous driving.

According to Apple CEO (Jeff Williams) and Kevin Lynch, the decision to cancel was announced in a meeting that lasted only 12 minutes. Bloomberg. Project staff will be transferred to AI projects or other teams; but there will also be layoffs, especially of engineers specializing in automobiles, who are difficult to transfer to a pure technology company like Apple.

Except, The company also plans to sell its test track in Arizona. A fact that will be the finishing touch to a project that, according to some sources, Steve Jobs himself submitted for consideration more than ten years ago.