After nearly ten years in development, Apple’s electric vehicle project was officially canceled recently. The termination of the project leaves several unanswered questions, including how far the vehicle made it into the development cycle, what technology was custom-created for the project, and more.
Now comes information that Apple’s silicon team had created a special system on a chip to power the “Apple Car,” and it sounds like the SoC was more powerful than any chip Apple had previously created.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman recently held a Q&A with readers on the now-canceled project and other things Apple. When asked about the Apple Silicon team and its involvement with the vehicle project, Gurman replied that the team was involved, if somewhat reluctantly, with the Apple Car project.
Perhaps reluctantly, the Apple Silicon team was heavily involved in the Apple car project. Remember, the most important part of the car was its AI brain. That all ran on Apple silicon. The chip Apple developed was nearly finished. It was equal to about four M2 Ultras combined.
Wow! Four M2 Ultras combined! The M2 Ultra, which is two M2 Max chips fused, features 134 billion transistors. That means the Apple Car’s SoC would boast roughly 536 billion transistors, making it easily the largest chip ever made.
Unfortunately, Gurman doesn’t go into details about the new chip, simply saying that the SoC’s development was almost completed when Apple pulled the wheels off of its vehicle project.
Since Apple generally likes to develop chips that can be used across its device lineups, we could indeed see the quad M2 Ultra SoC someday. 9to5mac reports that the engineers on the project were reassigned to other projects within the company, so it’s possible we’ll see the chip show up in a future device.
When asked if Apple would sell or license the technology developed during the Apple Car project, Gurman replied that while he didn’t think Apple would sell or license any of the technology it developed for the project, there is a good chance that Apple will reuse the technology it developed for its own future products. He pointed to more advanced silicon and artificial intelligence, plus the new “safetyOS” microkernel operating system that was built for the car.
He added that the few things that Apple may be able to sell would include the Arizona test track they own, as well as things like powertrain technology.
Gurman was also asked about Apple’s CarPlay as it was developed in relation to the Apple Car. A reader asked, “Do you see big changes in Apple CarPlay moving forward where maybe they were holding back some of the features to release on an Apple Car?”
He replied that he believes Apple is “all-in” on what they’ve already unveiled of the next generation of CarPlay, and at this point, He doesn’t expect to see more on the CarPlay roadmap.
Gurman was also asked about Tim Cook’s reasoning behind the cancellation of the Apple Car project, was Cook simply tying up loose ends before he retires?
Gurman replied that he didn’t see it that way. He noted that when Apple was rumored to be delaying the debut of the vehicle until 2028 there was speculation with Apple that the 2028 timeline was tied to Cook’s retirement target. Gurman finished his answer by saying he doesn’t expect to see Cook going anywhere anytime soon.