Apple’s plans to create an electric car have become less ambitious after 10 years of efforts. Mark Gurman of Bloomberg reports that instead of developing a driverless car, the company is now setting itself more realistic challenges.

According to the analyst’s unnamed sources, Apple plans to introduce the car no earlier than 2028 – previous forecasts were more optimistic by 2-3 years. According to rumors and sources, the company has been developing the project since 2014 and along the way it has already changed many managers. Gurman says Apple effectively stopped development last year under pressure from the smartphone market.

As of late 2022, the Cupertino-based company had set a goal of releasing a vehicle by 2026 with advanced autonomous driving features for the highway. Now Apple has found out that it will not be able to complete the creation of such a car in the near future and is developing more basic functions with a focus on the competitor in the person of Tesla. According to insiders, the car will use a so-called Level 2+ autonomous system. This is a downgrade of the previously planned technology 4 and the even earlier goal of creating a level 5 system.

The new strategy was adopted after a series of stormy meetings involving Apple’s board, project manager Kevin Lynch and chief executive officer Tim Cook. For several months in 2023, the board pressured Apple’s management to build a car.

Inside Apple, a key decision regarding the car project is brewing: Either the company can finally release the product with lower expectations, or top executives may seriously reconsider the very existence of the project. Further radical changes of plans are also not excluded.

The previous concept car suggested a system that would not require human intervention on highways in specific parts of North America and in most similar conditions. The basic level 2+ plan requires drivers to pay attention to the road and be ready to take control at any moment.

However, Apple hopes to release an updated system later that supports autonomy level 4 and additional regions. In this scenario, the car is fully autonomous, but still only under certain conditions. Level 5 means that the car can go anywhere under any circumstances.

Over the years, the car has been one of the company’s most expensive research projects. Apple spent hundreds of millions of dollars annually on salaries, cloud systems to control the unmanned computer, tests on closed roads and development of specific nodes. Despite efforts, the vehicle never reached the prototype stage. Company executives hope that this will finally happen thanks to the new approach.