Apple Cuts 200 Employees From Project Titan Autonomous Car Division

Apple has dismissed more than 200 employees involved in its autonomous vehicle group, dubbed Project Titan.

The technology giant has acknowledged the job cuts but suggests they do not indicate a move away from the development of industry-leading autonomous technologies.

“We have an incredibly talented team working on autonomous systems and associated technologies at Apple. As the team focuses their work on several key areas for 2019, some groups are being moved to projects in other parts of the company, where they will support machine learning and other initiatives, across all of Apple,” a company spokesperson said.

“We continue to believe there is a huge opportunity with autonomous systems, that Apple has unique capabilities to contribute, and that this is the most ambitious machine learning project ever.”

A number of other Project Titan employees will continue to work for Apple but move to different areas of the company as part of the restructuring, CNBC reports.

While Project Titan has remained top-secret since its formation, the company is understood to have shifted focus from developing a bespoke electric vehicle to instead just working on autonomous software.

As of August 2018, up to 2700 people were said to be involved with Project Titan under the leadership of ex-Tesla engineering executive Doug Field.

Apple is currently testing a series of autonomous prototypes throughout California. Most prototypes are based around Lexus SUV models that have been laden with sensors and have been spied testing on a number of occasions.