It has been just about a decade since Apple began with its attempt to develop a self-driving electric car. Though the company still seems no closer to putting an Apple electric car on the roads, recent sources indicate that the Cupertino tech giant’s approach to the same has shifted significantly. Apple now plans to launch a more basic electric vehicle (EV) model by 2028, aiming to compete in Tesla’s market share.

Apple’s first venture into the automobile business came with the Titan project in 2014, which first signalled the company’s interest in making its own self-driving electric vehicles. Over the years, Apple faced various hurdles, including leadership changes, strategy shifts, hiring freezes, layoffs, and continuous delays, making the journey to an Apple electric car difficult.

Despite these hurdles, Apple invests hundreds of millions of dollars yearly in research and development, including powertrains, self-driving hardware and software, and other vehicle components. However, a recent report by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman indicates a shift in Apple’s EV policy. The company’s initial ambition was a completely driverless car, which has now scaled back to a Level 2+ autonomous system. This technology, while sophisticated, has restricted functions such as lane centring and adaptive cruise control, which deviates from the original aim of Level 4 autonomy.

As the report indicates, the decision to minimize the project’s scope was made following lengthy discussions among Apple’s board, project manager Kevin Lynch, and CEO Tim Cook. The updated proposal includes conversations with possible European manufacturing partners, with a post-launch upgrade to allow Level 4 autonomy.

This alteration in approach has pushed the delivery date back by around two years from the previous projection, once again, highlighting the obstacles and uncertainty surrounding Apple’s entry into the electric car industry. Whether Apple will have an electric car to its name in the coming years or not still remains a mystery.