Apple’s much-hyped electric car appears to have been killed off before it ever hit the road. For years, the tech firm’s plan to branch out into developing an electric, semi-autonomous car have been the subject of much excitement. Codenamed Project Titan, fans speculated that Apple would turn its magic to designing a car that would revolutionise driving. The template of a square box with four wheels underneath that has dominated auto design for more than a hundred years would become a thing of the past.

Over the last decade, as rumours emerged about the project – which was never officially announced – Apple nerds, who admittedly have a tendency to be somewhat obsessive, have been busy speculating on what an ‘iCar’ might look like. Yet now the car will never see the light of day: the company has reportedly decided to scrap it. By doing so, it has struck a major blow to the whole EV (electric vehicle) industry.

Apple’s decision to get out of the EV market sounds wise

The Apple car has been in the works for years, and the firm has burnt through a small fortune in research and development costs. The jobs of hundreds of people working on the car now appear to be at risk. The company has instead shifted its focus to working on Artificial Intelligence (AI). Apple boss Tim Cook said a few weeks ago that the firm was spending ‘a tremendous amount of time and effort’ on AI. Shareholders will certainly be relieved by this. After all, the EV industry is turning into a brutally competitive, heavily-subsidised bloodbath, where very few people are going to end up making money.

Apple’s decision to get out of the EV market sounds wise. Demand for EVs in the UK has flatlined after the initial hype about the vehicles wore off: the number of such cars represented just 16.5 per cent of the total of new cars registered last year, slightly down on the previous year’s figure of 16.6 per cent. The truth is that cheap Chinese EVs are likely to be dominate the market over the coming years.

Apple is one of the richest and smartest companies in the world (just take a look at the share price for proof of that). If it can’t make money from EVs, then who can?

The car market badly needed some of Apple’s design and branding brilliance. There were plenty of music players before the iPod, and lots of clever phones before the iPhone. Apple’s genius is to take existing technology and transform it for the mass market. If it could have done that for the EV, it might have turned the industry upside down. Instead, it has decided it is not worth the trouble. The EV bubble is now bursting – and it is only a matter of time before governments and policy makers catch up.