Apple has canceled its decade-long program to build an electric car. And while I think it’s probably the right call to end the program, I do understand why Apple tried.

Ten years ago when Apple started the project, it was the perfect moment to rethink the automobile. With the change to battery powered electric powertrains, many of the traditional constraints of car design were no longer relevant. You no longer need a motor, or a gas tank. Cars are more reliant on their technology stack. There were very few competitors and they were almost all selling cars at the high end of the market. It seemed like a perfect time for Apple to step into revolutionizing the design of cars, questioning the established conventions of the past. Changing how cars were designed, manufactured and sold.

And yet, today, that’s not what happened. In general, electric cars today look like gas-powered cars, but without the tailpipes. There are reasons for this, I think — consumer buying habits, aerodynamics and federal safety laws — but the result is that this isn’t the revolution that it looked like it might be. Couple that with the fact that the no-steering-wheel, self-driving tech that Apple was rumored to be pursuing is decades away from being truly reliable.1 Battery advances are slow. When they started, there were few competitors, but that’s changed and lots of established car makers are committing to electric cars, with the addition of new upstarts like China’s BYD.

I understand why Apple started their car program. But after a decade of being stuck in neutral, I also understand why they finally ended it.

Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.

  1. If it ever actually happens. ↩︎