Inside Apple’s failed car program

The Carbon Copy

Mark Gurman has been covering Apple since 2009. His reporting career is full of scoops about new products or strategic decisions from inside the company.

His latest scoop in February: Apple is finally shutting down its efforts to build an autonomous electric car.

Apple first started exploring an electric car in 2014. At that point, cars had already become computers on wheels, Tesla was scaling mass-market production, and vehicle autonomy was the hottest thing in the tech industry.

“It made sense that Apple, which has a massive prowess in manufacturing, an incredible design ethos and a high standard for safety…would try to take a crack at that market,” said Gurman, a chief correspondent at Bloomberg.

But after a decade of internal disputes, redesigns, and leadership changes, Apple is officially moving on from cars.

“This was a clear admission of failure and admission of a need to disperse some of the resources from that program to other projects at the company,” explained Gurman.

In March, Gurman co-authored a piece detailing exactly what happened over the last 10 years of secretive work. This week, we talk with him about the vision, the technological challenges, and ask: what if Apple had just acquired Tesla from the start?

This episode is brought to you by The Big Switch. In a new 5-episode season, we’re digging into the ways batteries are made and asking: what gets mined, traded, and consumed on the road to decarbonization? Listen on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your shows.