Abstract

The case discusses American multinational corporation Apple Incorporated’s (Apple) failed electric car project titled ‘Project Titan’. In 2024, the company officially terminated the project after having spent US$10 billion on its Research & Development over a decade. The news came as a shock to the 2,000 employees working on the project. After the closure of the project, the company laid off some of the employees while some others were moved to the company’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) division. Industry analysts believed that the company had to close down the electric vehicle (EV) project as it lacked a clear direction and had been facing leadership challenges since 2016 as it kept changing its plans of developing a fully autonomous vehicle to developing car software to finally deciding to develop a hybrid electric vehicle to compete with rival automaker Tesla Inc. In February 2024, the company finally abandoned the EV project and announced its plans to use the AI it had generated in its EV project in its other products. In May 2024, analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. revealed that the growth outlook for the EV market looked optimistic as EVs were estimated to constitute 50% of new car sales by 2035. Given the positive outlook for EVs, did Apple do the right thing in closing down Project Titan? Did leadership challenges and internal conflicts lead to the failure of the Apple car project?

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Understand why companies fail with diversification
• Analyze the role of feasibility study, stakeholder analysis, and risk management in the successful execution of a project
• Discuss the leadership challenges in transformational projects
• Analyze the importance of decision-making in project management

Keywords

Electric vehicle; Leadership challenges; Internal conflicts; Special Projects Group; Global slowdown; Charging infrastructure; Generative AI; Strategy challenges; Electrification targets; Clean energy strategy; Hybrid vehicle; Tesla Inc.; Kevin Lynch; Jeff Williams; Goldman Sachs