Apple’s efforts to deliver its long-rumored iCar may have hit a rather serious pothole with recent news that the company has laid off dozens of employees as part of a “reboot” of the project.

The New York Times claims that the reboot sees the tech giant refocus from building its own car to instead building the underlying technology for a driverless vehicle that could potentially be used in other cars. If true, that would be a surprising step for a company that has always focused on building its own hardware and refuses to license its software to other manufacturers.

Apple has been looking at building its own car for several years and was supposed to have greenlit the development of “Project Titan” in September 2015. But it is said to have struggled to make progress in that time, despite seriously increasing the headcount in the division of the company working on the project.

The change to Project Titan is being led by Bob Mansfield, an Apple veteran who was brought in to run the project in July after former project lead Steve Zadesky left the company in January. Mansfield’s role at Apple previously was described as “working on special projects under Chief Executive Tim Cook.”

In a separate report, Quartz claims that Apple is sticking with its research into advanced batteries and continues to hire battery technicians, despite seemingly dropping the development of its own electric vehicle.

Growing pains

While self-driving electric vehicles are without a doubt considered to be the future of the automobile industry, development of such vehicles has none the less been somewhat slow. Leading firms in the development of such vehicles have all experience growing pains.

Google’s self-driving car project has been ongoing for years without any indication that it will ever be brought to market and has recently experienced the loss of key staff members. More spectacularly, Tesla Motors, Inc. saw the death of one of its vehicle owners who was using their “autopilot” feature.

Development does continue apace with the likes of ride-hailing monster Uber Inc. set to test a fleet of self-driving cars in Pittsburgh as soon as next week, following a delay.

Even if Apple is having problems playing a role in the space, there’s no question that the technology is not only coming but is just about here. It’s now just a question of when it will start to become widely available.

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