The industry is slowing down its progress. Some will win and some will lose as this happens.
Reports from Bloomberg suggest that Apple has decided to terminate its secret advanced car project, which though never officially acknowledged, was widely believed to be working on an electric and self-driving car. In a field which has seen recent turmoil, including the temporary halt of Cruise operations, and the cancellation of Ford’s Argo project act Aptiv’s drop of support for Motional (which still has the support of Hyundai) it’s certainly not good news for the pace of deployment of self-driving. Apple, while not usually a first mover, is a leading contender for being the top technology company in the world, and everybody was interested in, and afraid of what they might do.
These recent pull-backs have changed the tone of the industry. There is no longer any sense of “hurry” and while a few years ago companies entered the space for fear that they might be one of the few to be left behind—to their possible doom—more companies are evaluating whether they need to be actively working on the space.
Auto OEMs were never particularly eager. While they don’t deny that change will come to their industry, they don’t want it to be particularly fast, and would rather they manage it at their own non-disruptive pace. High-tech companies and startups were much more eager to enter a new a lucrative industry and get a chance to take it over, and do it their way. In a few cases, like Cruise, Argo and Motional, traditional auto companies bought startups and let them run as mostly independent companies in the hope of not falling for the big traditional company traps.
