Apple Sells Apple Car Test Circuit to Waymo: Major Shift in Autonomous Vehicle Race!

The Sale of Apple’s Former Autonomous Electric Car Test Track

Over two years after Apple discontinued its autonomous electric car initiative, the company has sold its test track in Arizona. According to legal documents identified by TechCrunch, Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet, purchased the 22-square-kilometer site for $220 million on June 5. The company has confirmed the transaction.

Apple originally bought the land in 2021 for $125 million, having leased it for five years prior. To conduct the transaction discreetly, Apple’s lawyers established a shell company named Route 14 Investment Partners LLC. However, the scale of the transaction made it difficult to keep under wraps. Car and Driver magazine conducted an investigation and discovered multiple clues linking the site to Apple.

The Discontinued Apple Car Project

The abandoned Apple Car project reportedly consumed over $10 billion over approximately a decade of development. When the project, known as “Project Titan,” was terminated, it employed about 2,000 people. Some of these employees were reassigned to the company’s artificial intelligence initiatives. While it’s likely that Apple was able to leverage some of the developments related to chips and autonomous driving systems based on AI, the profit from the sale of the test track is minor compared to the overall losses from the project.