Inside Apple’s failed car program

The Carbon Copy

Mar 28 2024 • 32 mins

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.

You Might Like

The Daily
The Daily
The New York Times
The Dan Bongino Show
The Dan Bongino Show
Cumulus Podcast Network | Dan Bongino
WSJ What’s News
WSJ What’s News
The Wall Street Journal
Serial
Serial
Serial Productions & The New York Times
Pod Save America
Pod Save America
Crooked Media
The Glenn Beck Program
The Glenn Beck Program
Blaze Podcast Network
Morning Joe
Morning Joe
Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, MSNBC
Mark Levin Podcast
Mark Levin Podcast
Cumulus Podcast Network
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Daily Wire
WSJ Your Money Briefing
WSJ Your Money Briefing
The Wall Street Journal
The Rachel Maddow Show
The Rachel Maddow Show
Rachel Maddow, MSNBC
Morning Wire
Morning Wire
The Daily Wire
The Fox News Rundown
The Fox News Rundown
FOX News Radio
Start Here
Start Here
ABC News
The Matt Walsh Show
The Matt Walsh Show
The Daily Wire