On February 27, local time, the well-known Apple technology reporter Mark Gurman (Mark Gurman) said on the X platform, Apple has announced the cancellation of its code-named "special project team" electric vehicle project, this news also indicates that Apple's secret efforts to build cars to match Tesla will come to an end.。

Gurman said Apple's chief operating officer Jeff Williams and Kevin Lynch, the vice president in charge of car-building projects, had announced the decision internally on Tuesday.。People familiar with the matter said that although Apple has never publicly acknowledged the project, the dissolution of the "special project team" did "surprise the project's nearly 2,000 employees."。

Apple's "road to build a car": never publicly admit that the project has been reorganized many times

Reports of Apple's ambitions to build cars first surfaced in 2014 after the company recruited automotive engineers and other talent from car companies。While little public information has come to light during Apple's car-building process, the only thing that can be glimpsed is the company's cruise in the San Francisco Bay Area, equipping passengers with Apple self-driving cars with sensors and safety drivers.。

In recent years, Apple's "special project team" car-building program has undergone several reorganizations, including layoffs in 2019, when employees were transferred to different parts of the company.。After the announcement of the dissolution of the project, the media said that some employees of the automotive department may be diverted to the artificial intelligence team that Apple focuses on training.。In addition, the company has many other automotive-related projects, including the CarPlay software。

The project is difficult to produce, and Apple's goals for the car-building project have been repeatedly lowered.。In 2022, Apple lowered its target to "go public in 2026, L4 level autonomous driving."。However, the news in January this year showed that Apple lowered its target to "L2 + level autonomous driving, listed in 2028."。The news had been seen as a compromise between Apple and itself, with cars with lower targets finally expected to hit the market.。But the latest developments show that the standard is probably too low for the board to tolerate。

Apple's car project aims to find new profit growth points outside the mobile phone and computer business。Apple has put a lot of effort into this process, including the development of health technology for the Apple Watch and the development of virtual reality technology。In the former, Apple's wearable devices have contributed $12 billion to earnings; in the latter, Apple's Vision Pro devices have been on the global fire.。

In contrast, Apple's smart car project has never met expectations, so much so that Apple and CEO Tim Cook have never publicly acknowledged the car project, referring to it as "autonomous system" work.。In 2016, Cook was asked about the project by a shareholder who joked that "it's going to be Christmas Eve for a long time."。

Apple's decision to stop building cars has responded positively to capital markets in the near future.

Entering 2024, demand for electric vehicles has slowed in recent months due to high borrowing costs。Last month, Tesla warned that sales growth this year would be weaker than in 2023.。

At the same time, Apple's partners and competitors are taking off to build cars, making the market increasingly competitive。Xiaomi's new car, the SU7, is expected to announce prices in the near future, with deliveries as early as the second quarter; Foxconn, Apple's main partner, also said last year that it would build an electric car。

Amid a host of negative factors, Apple's top management has finally made the decision in recent weeks to stop building the car project。

Gurman revealed that Apple had envisioned pricing Apple cars in the $100,000 bracket, but executives were concerned about whether the price would provide the high profit margins they were accustomed to, and whether the company was spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year on a project that might never come to fruition。

It's worth noting that the capital markets have reacted positively to the impact of Apple's cut of its car-building project。Before the news, Apple's shares were down about 0.About 5%。But as such a "high investment, low return" project was axed, Apple's stock price quickly pulled up。As of Tuesday's close, Apple closed up 0.81%, closed at 182.63美元。