Apple lays off 614 workers after ditching self-driving car project

According to documents filed with the state of California, Apple has laid off 614 workers. The report comes only a few weeks after the company decided to end its self-driving car project and it marks the tech giant's first significant round of job cuts since the onset of the pandemic.

Although it never made an official statement, the company had been developing an Apple-branded car for almost a decade. The program was codenamed Project Titan and it was supposed to directly compete with Tesla.

Unfortunately, the project was faced with resistance from the start with many convinced that Apple was out of its depth and the resources being sunk in the project could be utilized to grow areas that it was already strong at.

For instance, some experts argued that the company had a far better chance of developing a suite of hardware and software needed to enable autonomous driving than it had of making a complete EV driverless car from scratch.

Apple finally shut down the project early in February. While it was understood that Apple would try to transition as many employees as possible to other projects, some layoffs were expected.

The filings with the state of California do not detail the specific roles of the departing employees but categorize them by location. A popular publication that looked at them noted that a significant portion of the layoffs, approximately 371 employees, originated from Apple's Santa Clara office, which served as the main hub for Project Titan.

Additionally, several dozen employees from satellite offices associated with the automotive project were also affected. Approximately 87 employees working on a separate project related to device screen development were also let go. This project, aimed at enabling Apple to manufacture its own device screens, faced engineering and cost challenges, leading to its closure at the end of March.