Apple Inc. has cut hundreds of positions in its car project and is now only pursuing self-driving technology that can be applied to other cars, according to a new report Monday.

Bloomberg quotes sources as saying that hundreds of members of the car team, which originally comprised around 1,000 people, have been reassigned or let go or have left of their own volition in recent months. The moves have come as part of a new focus on developing an autonomous driving system that would allow Apple to partner with an existing carmaker, or perhaps return to designing its own vehicle in the future, the report said.

Apple executives are also said to have given the remaining members of the team until the end of 2017 to prove the feasibility of the self-driving system they are building, after which they would make a final decision on whether the project should continue.

The reason given for the changes is said to include “months of strategy disagreements, leadership flux and supply chain challenges.”

Apple started “Project Titan,” as the Apple car project has been known, in 2014 and gave it a “committed project” status in 2015 with a target delivery date of 2019. Paypal alumnus and Tesla founder Elon Musk noted in January this year that the Apple car project was an open secret but was no risk to what Tesla was doing. Musk turned out to be correct.

That same month, project lead Steve Zadesky left Apple and was replaced six months later by Apple veteran Bob Mansfield, who is believed to be driving the radical shift in the program. Trouble with the project emerged in September when reports emerged the Apple has laid off dozens of employees as part of a “reboot” of the project.

Dead in the water?

SiliconANGLE has described Apple’s move to make its own car as a “ballsy move to take on the global car industry given both its combined might and history,” but it now appears that it wasn’t so ballsy as it was flawed. Apple has tried teaming up with global car makers to assist them with the project but with no success, with a report in April saying it had failed in negotiations with German car maker BMW/ Daimler.

Given the severe job cuts and a target only to build self-driving technology, there’s no question now that the prospect of an actual Apple car is dead in the water. Whether it comes up with its own self-driving technology that can be applied to other cars is tentative at best. We won’t know the answer to that until late next year, presuming that what remains of the project lasts that long.

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