My pet theory is still that the Apple Car project is all just to keep Jony Ive around - he's bored of designing square rectangles, and every day when he gets in his Tesla he swears at the crappy plastic interior. He went to Tim Cook and said "I'm leaving for Tesla to fix their design", and Tim Cook knowing that Jony Ive is probably half of Apple's share value will do anything to keep him on.
>The existing technology really blows, and Apple can make a significant contribution.
This is absolutely ridiculous. Apple is starting out at 0 with no real competence in this area, the least of which is interaction with regulatory bodies tasked with consumer protection.
Your assessment, whether correct or not (I've no idea), has an oddly familiar ring:
> “We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.” -- November 16, 2006, Palm CEO, Ed Colligan
> “Apple is slated to come out with a new phone… And it will largely fail…. Sales for the phone will skyrocket initially. However, things will calm down, and the Apple phone will take its place on the shelves with the random video cameras, cell phones, wireless routers and other would-be hits… When the iPod emerged in late 2001, it solved some major problems with MP3 players. Unfortunately for Apple, problems like that don’t exist in the handset business. Cell phones aren’t clunky, inadequate devices. Instead, they are pretty good. Really good.” -- December 07, 2006, CNET, Michael Kanellos
> Your assessment, whether correct or not (I've no idea), has an oddly familiar ring
I'm going to go ahead and claim your argument adds little value due to overgeneralization. Just because some guys were wrong in their criticism of Apple doesn't mean everyone who criticizes Apple is wrong.
If I weren't feeling lazy, I would produce a long list of quotations that wrongly claimed the iPad would deprecate desktop computing (from both inside Apple and outside). The term "post-PC era" was being bandied about. So no, Apple doesn't always achieve their goals - even stated ones.
The analogy was fitting because it was basically the same argument: "they're not (phone|car) people...".
It doesn't mean that it's a certain success, but it does show that Apple can innovate in new areas and complacency is possibly not the best idea for the current market leaders.
All of which is also true when Apple set out to make a phone. They had no competence in RF engineering, or interaction with the diversity of cellphone network providers throughout the world, the conventional wisdom at the time was that an outsider couldn't just break in to the phone market without acquiring an existing manufacturer.
Sorry, I call BS on this. I know a good bit about the semi-secret history here. I worked at Motorola before and during the launch of the first iPhone and also knew some of the people on the original iPhone product team. While it is true that they started with very few mobile industry veterans, they hired a few key people; they either quickly learned how to maneuver inside Apple or disappeared without a trace.
So it is not accurate to say Apple just learned how to make smartphones really fast, more that they effectively hacked the whole process with a number of Jedi mind tricks as well as key product decisions, all cemented by classic Steve Jobs dickery.
1. They cultivated us at Motorola shamelessly by pretending to make an "iTunes phone" (remember the Rockr?) while they were just pumping our teams for information on how the byzantine portfolio and terminal acceptance process at carriers worked. They never intended that phone to ship and used the whole sordid con to get into Ralph de le Vega's office (sorry, Ed Zander).
They then used all the persuasion and BS they had to convince AT&T to give Apple a pass on the incredibly complex field network testing all phones must pass. The reason the overall phone experience of the first iPhone was so bad was not just because Jobs and co wanted it to be a great music and Internet experience first, but because they couldn't make a great phone at all then.
I don't see the exact analogy with teh car industry. cars. The mobile phone business was laughably over-regulated and unlike the extremely competitive phone industry, wireless carriers were not really. And oh yeah, smartphones were terrible, and cars today, whether you like the way they look or not, are some of the most incredibly optimized products ever made by man: safe, reliable, efficient.
Cars just can't be disrupted via a Jesus phone coming in at the high end with innovative features. The Jesus car already exists (Tesla) and it has been extremely successful at influencing one of the biggest industries in the world in numerous ways. But if your goal, like Apple, is to not just influence but manufacture at scale, then Tesla has failed and it appears it will take any company, even Apple, decades to learn how to really make cars for more than a few.
I sure hope this isn't just abut cars as a service, because Apple has demonstrated it just can't do services, even when latched to a truly beautiful shiny object it has made.
> because Apple has demonstrated it just can't do services
"In Fiscal 2015, the Services bin, “revenue from the iTunes Store ® , App Store, Mac App Store, iBooks StoreTM and Apple MusicTM (collectively “Internet Services”), AppleCare, Apple Pay ® , licensing and other services” counted for $19.9B, 8.5% of the company total."
People in this thread are talking about the "bullshit" of existing cars and how the AppleCar will be a "come to Jesus" moment.
Pointing to revenue as proof of success is a bad metric here. Great, the App and Mac App Store make lots of money, not the least because one of them is the only way for anyone to make revenue from iOS.
No-one could point to MAS, for example, and pretend with a straight face that it's a "service done right" for anyone except Apple's bottom line.
You're right. I didn't address the primary issue. And Apple's services have plenty of room for improvement.
Making US$20BN in revenue gives runway to make those improvements.
The other US$200BN+ / year and cash warchest means they're able and willing to make new markets. Even if their car doesn't work, they'll be worth watching. Cars can be much better than they are, and I welcome the competition.
> I can point to one service Apple has done right, Messages
Is it the same message that for many years disappeared all message sent to you when you switched from Apple? Perhaps as a final "fuck you" for leaving our ecosystem or them not just caring
I just switched to iOS and the part I like the least has to be iMessage... it sucks. It will always try to send a message over HTTP even when you're in the subway instead of sending over SMS and not realize that it's an issue and just getting stuck halfway through sending.
There's a huge difference between iterating an iPod into a phone and moving from consumer electronics to a completely different market that just happens to depend on some electronics but requires a whole lot more engineering know-how that Apple has in its stables.
Yup, there seems to be worrying trend on HN that any company not a part of the tech inner circle has no idea what the are doing.
Funny because more than once there have been articles here about how assuming unusual/ugly code is the work of an incompetent engineer is short sighted, as often professionals DO know what they are doing, and it was done for a good reason that is not immediately apparent.
> Apple is starting out at 0 with no real competence in this area, the least of which is interaction with regulatory bodies tasked with consumer protection
Couldn't that competence be hired in? Tesla also started from zero.
I concur with rpgmaker that it's bullshit to say that the existing technology "blows".
Tell me exactly how an Apple car will be better than my existing petrol-powered car. Not in an abstract sense, for me.
With the iPhone, we had the full web (as opposed to only the mobile web), a large screen, a touch interface, only one button, and (in 2.0) apps. These made the iPhone far better than older phones. What's the equivalent for cars?
I agree with that, but you haven't given any information or insight to substantiate your claim that the Apple car will be the next iPhone. Merely saying "it will be awesome!" doesn't convince anyone :)
I can only point to the fact that cars and transportation in general are obviously about to be heavily disrupted by software--in many ways. Just like phones and communications in 2006.
> Tell me exactly how an Apple car will be better than my existing petrol-powered car. Not in an abstract sense, for me.
Nope. Can't explain it in a way you'll feel it. Doesn't mean it's not a thing though.
I thought the Tesla Model S was an understated 4 door sedan with a novel but fatally flawed propulsion technology. Then I spent a day in one. It was enough to convince me to plop down the deposit for a Model 3 sight unseen.
And there's still nothing wrong with my Toyota 4 Runner. But if Tesla makes a light SUV I'm buying it. It's just ... better.
As someone who drove a Tesla S here in UK - the only cool things about that car were the dashboard display(where your speedo is normally) and the quiet drive paired with stupid acceleration. Other than that, it had fantastically poor interior, plastic everywhere(I've noticed this in almost all American cars - even very expensive Chevrolets, Chryslers, US-spec Fords are just full of plastic for some reason). The huge screen is awesome for first few minutes, and then you realize you can't change temperature without looking down - who thought that putting everything on a touchscreen was a good idea??
I guess I would maybe buy one for the fuel saving? But seriously, I would much rather buy a BMW/Audi/Merc/Jaguar for the same price, unless my main priority was fuel saving.
That's not fair! You are comparing European car-makers with US ones :P
Joking aside, I have to agree - once you've been inside a modern Audi/Merc/Beemer, you do have to wonder what all the fuss about Tesla is. Its not like Tesla has a monopoly on attractive electric cars: the i8 is gorgeous.
I have not been in an i8, but the Tesla made me a believer in electric. If BWM is serious about electrics then Tesla might be in trouble. BMW's repair record has had its ups and downs over the years. If they get that right and the software right I might be inclined to go with the Beemer.
Well, that's the exact question that Apple is trying to answer. It's funny how easy it seems to be to dismiss the genius of the iPhone. I guess it's a hallmark of good design that it seems completely obvious after you've seen it.
Regarding the car, long-range electric drive and self-driving capabilities are "obvious" improvements that would hit "revolutionary" on the scale. But those are still problems of basic science and I doubt that Apple can get there faster than all of the competition combined.
I just hope they don't claim to have invented the car. Seriously.
I am all for interesting design ideas making it to market based on less risk averse capital but I get tired of the hype. Probably a sign of senescence.
I would much rather see a re-imagining of bus lines with 2 or 4 person pods that you can summon from a stop, and ride directly to your next stop. Such a personal transit system was envisioned in the early 80's but lacked the cost effectiveness of the computer controls we have today. Such a system, on a closed pavement track system, would be buildable today with little to no technical risk.
But they did reinvent the phone. If they deliver the first end to end point car - I believe they can claim to have reinvented the car. That's a big if though.
I think they'll launch something really cool and that they come close to being the first autonomous car the general population accepts - most likely with BMW or Mercedes. Coming to ford / gm a few years later
You left out the company which I think is the obvious Apple contender; Porsche, which is the gold standard for premium cars and SUVs. Porsche is the reason that Tesla is in trouble, they are the best example of having an exciting car that is instantly recognizable and extremely high quality, yet superbly engineered and (this is the Tesla-killing part) just as nice inside as outside or under the hood. If Apple were to make a gasoline powered car, they'd make the 911 turbo. It even comes in white :)
Porsche is hardly a gold standard. They're not unique, just another in a large line of boutique car brands that have a different design language and a different set of engineering goals. Meanwhile their big-selling models, the Cayenne and Macan are little more than dolled-up Audis, which are in turn little more than dolled-up Volkswagens. It appears they've managed to fend away the VW Group short-cuts and corruption for now, but I'm sceptical whether that can last.
Nothing in the automotive industry parallels well with Apple, largely because the automotive industry isn't conducive to rapid evolution, short product cycles and aggressive market disruption. The best case scenario is for Apple to keep pace with Tesla's product cadence but with faster volume shipments through off-shore manufacturing.
Their first product will almost inevitably be a minimum viable product comparable to the original iPhone and original iPad. Remember those products? Enough to prove the idea to an audience, but look like rough beta products 24 months later.
I don't want to buy a new car every 12-24 months, but I would like to have the option to meaningfully upgrade the entertainment system every so often, even if it cost money. Imagine if the entertainment unit was actually just an iPad Mini in a nicely integrated mount. But if you wanted, you could simply swap it out for the latest model of any size. Buy a new iPad and your car now has a bigger screen.
--
If Apple could disrupt the industry in any way, it would be to sell a car that thwarted obsolescence better than any that came before it. Imagine being able to buy a car today and five years from now have it fitted with the latest safety system and radar...
(It's the same problem with TVs – those integrated "smart" features are mediocre from day one and become obsolete long before the display itself.)
Porsche has nothing in common with Apple except being expensive. The value proposition of a Porsche is not generated by clever engineering but simply raw power and valuable materials. Porsche is a high-end gaming desktop.
The smart car is (or at least was, when launched) much closer: different, innovative, a bit quirky.
Prediction: The Apple car will be electric, not terribly fast, probably a two-seater.
The big question to me is whether they can make a "car" that looks little like the car we think of right now and still have it accepted by the market.
Not necessarily on the exterior, but an entertainment-geared interior that is comfortable and also legal/safe.
And also whether they can push out an industry-shaking product without Steve. Tim Cook is amazing, don't get me wrong, but he doesn't seem like the radical we need.
Edit: the radical we need for car reinvention specifically.
Its been said elsewhere, but making cars is hard. Large multinational companies with decades of relevant expertise struggle to make cars. Not just with the technical issues, but with regulatory issues as well, which for many engineering-driven companies end up being almost as significant obstacles as the tech itself.
Tesla is doing very well, but is still facing hurdles, and tough competition. And Tesla is dedicated 100% to making cars, with a founder who was willing to bet (and potentially lose) everything on his push for electric cars.
I'm just not convinced that a $500 billion, 100,000-person company can pivot into being a car company, nor am I convinced that a company whose specialty is the development of phones, computers, and software can open up a car arm and successfully go toe-to-toe against Mercedes, BWM, and (to a lesser extent) Tesla.
Responding to questions from New York Times correspondent John Markoff at a Churchill Club breakfast gathering Thursday morning, Colligan laughed off the idea that any company — including the wildly popular Apple Computer — could easily win customers in the finicky smart-phone sector.
“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”
There is so much that Apple could do to truly "reimagine" the car. They have the capital and the capability to build the product. But when I think of what a "reimagined" car looks like, I envision a product that would need extensive study by regulatory bodies before it would be allowed on the road due to it's highly automated nature. And I wonder if that is something that Apple is interested in challenging, not only in states and federally, but with governments all around the world.
Phones used to do one thing really well: phone calls. The iphone was the first smartphone where other uses like web browsing were plausible, and now phones are barely used for calls at all.
Cars do one thing really well: driving. What, exactly, is the new form of use of cars that an Apple car can open up? What are you going to use your car for that isn't getting from point A to point B?
> Cars do one thing really well: driving. What, exactly, is the new form of use of cars that an Apple car can open up?
Level 4 or 5 autonomous driving would be nice little coup. Unfortunately for Apple, the technology isn't quite there yet as it was on the brink of the iPhone launch.
The car industry is much more mature than the smartphone industry when iPhone was introduced. It will be much harder to convince anyone to buy your car over the trusted brands or tesla
The electric car industry however, is not. They share a fair amount, but there are also a lot of significant differences that have only really been explored at scale by a few companies for a few years.
the difference is that back then you could buy off-the-shelf components and have your phone built in china (what apple did and does). you can't easily do the same with a car. yes apple can create good software for a car but they might be better off licensing it to car manufacturers than providing an end to end solution.
You can easily outsource car manufacturing as well.
You're also underestimating the amount of hardware design Apple did and does. They don't buy the display, cpu, touchscreen, battery or much else off the shelf.
Just like Ericsson and Nokia? They didn't stand a chance, as history has proven. Especially given most of these car companies don't have a huge pile of cash on the sidelines.
Social-signalling/being a 'high-end' phone is what the iPhone's success rode on, and there were no high-end smartphones (well, there was Virtu but they were more botique than mass-produced high-end).
There already exist a smorgasbord of luxury cars that are social signallers; Apple will have to do something much more 'revolutionary' than they did with the iPhone. There weren't any smartphone equivalents of Mercedes-Benz, Porsche[1] or Maserati.
But Apple is still perceived as a premium brand by many. I am unsure of how many of those belong to the class of people who will buy a premium car but am willing to bet there are just enough to be dangerous.
Apple is also more well-known than Tesla currently. I still think it won't be easy for Apple but I've learned to appreciate the power of market perception.
Mansfield has a successful track record with respect to Apple products.
With that said, this is his most difficult challenge to date and I'm not sure how successful he and the company as a whole will be given the difficulties of bringing an autonomous car to market.
I believe the goal here is an electric car with autonomous features, branded similar to the S-Class or the new E-Class (instead of going all the way like Tesla's AutoPilot).
What's the point of that? Why would Apple want to make such a huge bet on an industry they have never been in just to create an incremental improvement on cars already billed as luxury items?
If they proceed with the Apple Car, I would imagine it would be a disrupting concept that Apple would be uniquely prepared to handle.
I think it has to do with the car industry being the best out of a bunch of bad options. You simply don't need the kind of liquidity Apple has on hand to run a business with the current Product Lineup Apple has on offer. Sure they could do more here and there, but compared to the insane amounts of capital Apple has, any effort in the computing/telco space is just pocketchange.
If Apple ventures out of computing and into areas that need that kind of capital to be feasible, you start comparing lots of medium to low margin industries, the car industry being one of them.
When you look at Apple's brand, company focus and in-house experience, there's only a few industries where diving into could make it a relatively safe bet for the capital involved.
Cars make sense because they are complex technology, already very brand and UX focused in their usual sales processes, and there is a lot of money to be made in the optimization of the supply chain, all things which Apple is second to none.
There were surely other options and I imagine are still being discussed in Cupertino.
Large Scale Urban Development seems like a similar viable candidate, but the salescycles and product lifecycles are probably too much at odds with the rest of Apples business. But the prospect of an build to order Apple Campus must seem quite exciting to some people that are having a blast building the new spaceship.
Among other industries, i could also imagine the Hotel industry being on their marks for similar reasons.
With the capital they have on hand they could literally start space hotels as a business; they have more cash than the horrifically cost-inefficient ISS cost and just short of the entire Apollo program ( about $150 billion adjusted for inflation ).
Compared to options like that, building cars just looks like selling sugary water. Why not put 90% in the pot and really move things forward?
> Why not put 90% in the pot and really move things forward?
Job security? I bet the shareholders would revolt at the first sign of faltering on a $150 billion project. Sugary water might not be exciting, but it is nice and safe and won't get the C-level execs fired.
The businesses you mention have much lower margins than premium consumer electronics. Apple branded condos would be a poor use of the brand. They should just give the money to shareholders if that's all they can think of.
Thats the point, there are no other industries that provide a ROI as high as Apples while needing that much cash and benefit from Apple Position. Hence the choosing of the best of Bad options. Giving the money to shareholders surely would be an option, but Apple's Board seems to think going toward another big industry is a better Option.
Apple appears to be able to defy gravity in smartphone margins. Let's see how they do with cars. Some people think Tesla has a 25%+ gross margin. And Apple has the capital to do something similar at a the scale of auto industry incumbents.
It's one thing to talk yourself into an iPhone that costs a few hundred dollars more than the competition. It's another thing to talk yourself into an iCar that costs $50,000 more (assuming...)
I can't see Apple (or any other car startup, for that matter) going any where near the dealership model. There are too many problems with it and too little flexibility. If it weren't for legacy agreements that effectively hamstring manufacturers, it's likely that there would have been some significant changes made years ago. Anyhow, Tesla has already done the hard work of confronting it and making consumers aware of an alternative.
The biggest problem will be dealing with their influence over state legislatures. Tesla already upset dealerships; the idea of someone like Apple (with their capital on hand, experience, and influence at the federal level) following in Tesla's footsteps will be enough to terrify dealerships into some pretty heavy-handed action.
As for the supply chains, there are a lot of differences between the supply chain for consumer electronics manufacturing and automobile parts, but Apple's experience is still intensely relevant. I think it's likely that they'll have a lot of successes in dealing with it, despite those differences.
Seems like for a distribution model, Apple would go the way of Tesla and forgo them entirely. In fact, it would be amusing to see Apple fight legal battles that help sell Teslas in states where they've outlawed it due to the huge dealer lobby. If anyone could slug that one out and win, Apple certainly has the expertise and capital to do it.
Indeed. I would be a little nervous if I were a traditional brick-and-mortar car dealer franchisee right about now. Because if Tesla gets the laws changed, what's to stop the big manufacturers from just selling direct as well.
Existing auto manufacturers have signed contracts with their existing dealers. All states have laws that protect those contracts. Tesla is not attacking those contracts and those laws.
Tesla's attacking laws that say that all new autos have to be sold by dealers. That's quite different, and only a few states have such laws.
My guess is they will rethink what a "car" fundamentally is all about. They'll create a vehicle that has new features that play to their strengths, even if the "car-ness" isn't a big improvement on existing models in the market.
Back when the iPhone first came out a lot of people dismissed it because it wasn't a very good phone - the audio quality and reception tended to be worse than a good Nokia. Who cares if it has all these extra whiz-bang features like a touch screen and a web browser if it's not a very good phone, the thinking went. A lot of people didn't appreciate that Apple was creating a communication and information retrieval device, and not just a traditional phone with some extra features.
I suspect Apple will create a car that provides a great experience for people getting from point A to point B. It will probably not be a great car to drive. But it will probably be an awesome car for passengers. My guess is that they are betting that there will be more passengers relative to drivers over the next decade or two, and that passengers will, in a perhaps indirect way, become a bigger force in car buying decisions than they have been in the past.
So, by the metrics traditionally used to compare cars it will probably be only an incremental improvement over existing models - or it might even be a step backwards. But by the metrics that we'll use to evaluate cars in ten or fifteen years it will be an amazing improvement.
> Back when the iPhone first came out a lot of people dismissed it because it wasn't a very good phone
You're describing the launch of the Prius and the GT86, both of which were bagged for tyre size, horsepower, and other metrics. Both have done quite well for Toyota.
Oh, absolutely. They loved the handling and similar less quantifiable qualities. The people bagging it were the people saying, "Only 200HP? Why are the tyres so small?" while the folks looking at the overall picture were saying "this is a hugely fun car in a very practical way."
It is. And the move towards autonomous cars is part of the reason why there will be more passengers relative to drivers on the road. But it's not the only factor, or the only way to improve the passenger experience.
For example, I'd gladly forget about Lyft and Uber and use a new ride service if their drivers all had cars that offered me a better experience than what a Toyota Camry provides today.
Also, in-car entertainment has become hugely popular for family cars like mini/sport-utility vans.
My guess is that Apple will create an in-car infotainment system that makes current systems look like phone web browsers from 2005.
> I'd gladly forget about Lyft and Uber and use a new ride service if their drivers all had cars that offered me a better experience than what a Toyota Camry provides today.
Why don't you use a limousine service, then? There are surely services in your area offering to drive you around in a long-body S-class or 7-series, which are actually purpose built for back-seat comfort.
My guess is you can't afford that. Why would you then be able to afford whatever premium Apple car ride service in the future?
I'd consider it a failure if all Apple added was a better entertainment system. It's nice (possibly) and it seems to fit with the rest of Apple's products, but it'd fail to get to the core of the whole "car" concept.
"There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get."
Palm CEO Ed Colligan in 2006:
"We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone," he said. "[Apple is] not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in."
They laughed at Einstein, but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
A smartphone was solidly within Apple's expertise in 2007. It's a small consumer electronics device (iPod, Mac) with a graphical UI (Mac OS X). Apple had tons of experience building (or more accurately, outsourcing the building of) small electronics. What was tricky about the iPhone was the RF stuff, getting the carriers to cooperate, and cutting data usage to squeeze into the crappy data plans available. Except RF stuff is nearly off-the-shelf, and Apple cut the Gordian Knot for the other two items by partnering with an underdog carrier in exchange for unlimited data plans.
A car is far outside Apple's expertise. Are they going to outsource it to Foxconn like they do with the iPhone, and ship them across the Pacific? Doesn't seem feasible. Will they buy or build their own factory? Doable, but totally new for them. What about sales, service, and support? The iPhone was able to use Apple's extensive network of existing retail stores for that, but cars need garages and mechanics.
Obviously, it can be done. Tesla pulled it off with far less. But there's plenty of room for Apple to crash and burn, too. (Figuratively, one hopes.)
To answer your question I googled the Italian web and found more details than I knew. The story is a little different and I couldn't put together all the pieces of the puzzle.
According to the sources the cars are either designed in Italy and made in China or designed by a Chinese company with Italian designers (not only the style, but at least the navigation system and battery management).
I found some references to the Xin Da Yang Electric Vehicles and the Shandong Xindayang Electric Vehicle companies, which should be part of the same group anyway. The model is called ZD1 and it's a custom version of the iCar0 http://greengomoving.it/prodotti/
That car was sold in Italy at 13 k EUR but didn't sell enough. The business was relaunched as car sharing and it's doing well enough judging from the number of cars I see around. I plotted the invoice numbers against time and it's a line, which could be OK given it's limited to a few cities and they have competitors. They could already have saturated the market unless they open in other cities.
Awesome, thanks so much for all that information. Maybe I'm too pessimistic about the possibility of outsourced car manufacturing after all. Seeing a car on freakin' Alibaba sure gives me a different perspective on it. Apple would need a whole different kind of scale, of course, but that's something the Chinese do well.
Not necessarily. Apple could sell those cars or operate a car sharing service. In the latter case they need to build only a fraction of the cars. Ideally we'll get a self driving car that never stops, going from customer to customer like a cab. That would reduce the number of cars even further.
Whatever thwy'll be I wonder if we'll be able to operate those cars with an Android phone or they'll be iPhone only.
> Are they going to outsource it to Foxconn like they do with the iPhone, and ship them across the Pacific? Doesn't seem feasible.
I have no idea, but they seem to be pretty good at outsourcing manufacturing where it makes sense to do so. I don't see that as a significant blocker to an Apple automobile.
I visited the NeXT factory in Fremont, and it certainly seemed state of the art to me at the time.
NeXT Computer Inc. eventually became NeXT Software Inc. and ceased manufacturing hardware. That was 23 years ago. I'd be surprised if any significant presence from that manufacturing team remained in Cupertino today.
I was under the impression due to cost and poor sales, they actually had alternate arrangements to build the NeXT products after a while. It was a nice video and launch story though.
You're right they did get out of the hardware business totally in the later years. But still, they build an an incredible factory that was widely praised.
I'm not talking about getting out of the hardware business.
"The factory that Jobs had configured to produce 10,000 computers every month produced hundreds every month. Because of the low volume, human labor was cheaper than maintaining the automated equipment."
In the entire life of the company, that factory built about as many computers as Tesla built cars just last year. And Tesla is a tiny player. This experience hardly seems relevant. Modern Apple is built on NeXT's software, but I don't think there's much if anything of their manufacturing in there.
I know what you mean. I often feel like the state of things in the 90s (when I really started with computers in earnest) is "how things are" and all the changes since then are recent developments.
Looking more recently, Apple does have their own factory in the US to make the Mac Pro. I wonder if any of that was intended as a testbed for in-house manufacturing in general.
Your kind of arguments were also made about how Apple was going to disrupt the watch industry, the TV industry, and maybe a few more industries. Watches and TVs are closer to Apple's expertise than cars. Apple still hasn't been able to do anything meaningful in those industries.
I still think that, with cars, Apple will try to do what it did with the Apple TV. Just like they built something that works with existing TVs, they'll try to build something that works with existing cars (or a few car partners). I don't think they'll try to manufacture cars.
Precisely. I think it would be fair to describe the Apple Watch as a flop. Amongst my tech friends, and my watch-loving friends (and a noted intersection of the two), only one owns an Apple Watch. And they prefer their Pebble.
I never understand the point of these posted quotes. Every time someone posts a reasonable doubt about Apple's new ventures, there's always the classic "iPhone rebuttal." Yes, Apple did iPhone, and during that time, some of their competitors laughed at them. What does it prove now? Apple is going to solve every single problem on earth just because they have iPhone? Companies create amazing products, same companies also create horrible products. Just because they had created an amazing product does not mean every single product they will create subsequently will be amazing and vice-versa. Why is it so hard for some people to understand?
What does any discourse on a forum prove? We're debating stuff that we mostly have little clue or hard data about. Most of what we have are narratives, quotes, anecdotes, analogies, etc.
In the old days we called it "shooting the breeze".
I'm sure an auto industry exec or engineer might chime in with some insight, but even that doesn't prove anything, just might illuminate the challenge Apple has ahead of them.
Ballmer was only wrong about which Apple alternative ended up capturing a majority of the market.
It doesn't matter a lot to Apple as they have captured a large portion of the segment of the market that is willing and able to spend more, but Android has more of the total market.
Ballmer was right. He underestimated the amount of money they would make, and also underestimated the size of the various markets, and ALSO got it wrong about who would be the "other" OS but......his core point was correct.
They were both right at the time. It wasn't until a few years later that the iPhone was actually competitive. It was really Android (and apps) that changed mobile. None of the companies with great OS teams (Nokia, Blackberry, Palm, Ericsson etc.) could compete with free. All the companies that are successful today are close to the hardware supply chain.
Android only had that opportunity because Apple changed the basic design of smartphones. Until the iPhone, Android was more like the Blackberry of the time. Of course, it wasn't until a few years later that Android phones were decent as the initial ones had issues.
Hard to compare a 100 year old industry with dozens of entrenched companies (many intended for the luxury end of the market) and a medium that was just getting off the ground with the high point being a "decent phone"
Did Ballmer and Coligan really believe what they said? Or were they just trying to put up a brave face? I'm inclined to think it is the latter. Obviously they can't say "oh we know Apple will do very well and kick our butt", right?
Did Ballmer and Coligan really believe what they said?
I believe that Ballmer believed it. Because MSFT in response to this new iPhone was...to let WinMobile, which was already starting to look long in the tooth before iPhone, sit and languish for a few more years. It wasn't until iOS had well and truly kicked their ass that MSFT decided to freshen up WinMo. By then it was too late.
Palm? Eh, maybe Coligan believed it. Then again, Palm was well aware of the Newton because, well, Palm kicked Newton's ass. But Palm knew that Apple could make a mobile device (even if it were pricey). Could adding phone radios and a dialer be that much of a barrier to entry? I mean, Palm obviously figured out how to do it.
To be fair, $500 subsidized was way way way above market and Apple had to cut the price significantly. Without the pricecut, the iphone would have probably been more a premium product instead of the default phone in America. They would have still made a killing, but they would have opened the door for Android to mop up.
The original iPhone was, in fact, carrier subsidised. Apple got a cut of the special monthly contract required to use it. If I remember correctly, they had to offer an unlocked version in a few countries and it was several hundred dollars more.
Apple could release a car that has fewer features than a Tesla or Mercedes, and if it was designed very well, with seamless integration with the iPhone, lots of people would buy it.
The real evidence of this is the news today of Ford (as far as I know last of the major car companies with presence in the US) incorporating CarPlay into their console software. I've heard the reason for the swift industry-wide uptake of the platform is very high consumer demand - even to the point of driving the purchasing choice for a number of customers.
It was a non-trivial factor in my picking a Kia to lease.
I'm not a car person so I mostly can't tell the difference in power, nor do I need it, from other cars. I didn't care about reliability since it was a lease. But I did care that I had to use yet another shitty car-company interface, so having CarPlay support was a huge plus.
The car companies brought this on themselves by designing such bad software for their in-dash systems.
> I'm not a car person so I mostly can't tell the difference in power
Bet you could if you tried. ;)
I really like my car. It's comfortable, I like driving it.
I really really really really hate the fucking sync software. It's just awful. Full of the stupidest bugs. I don't even have the full nav version, I have the smaller radio system. If I could find a decent replacement console that let me keep my climate controls (physical HVAC controls are a must. no touchscreen BS) I'd upgrade to carplay.
I'm not a car person so I mostly can't tell the difference in power, nor do I need it, from other cars.
If you lived close, I'd take you for a ride in our 4000lb. VW camper van that cranks out a massive 68 horsepower. You'll notice the difference on the first hill we encounter. :-) (I take your point, though; I've a similar attitude: if I want to go fast, I'll get on the motorcycle and do it right, otherwise I don't care much.)
But I did care that I had to use yet another shitty car-company interface, so having CarPlay support was a huge plus.
Between rental cars and our Nissan Leaf with it's fucking abysmal in-dash UI, I've decided that any car we buy from here on out will have CarPlay or no deal. I'm just not going to put up with crappy car UIs anymore. Plopping a CarPlay-compatible dash unit in our old Scion xB was a revelation. Nothing earth-shattering in CarPlay, but it's familiar and non-annoying. I was driving my Mom's new '16 Corvette, and having not memorized central Florida roads, I found the UI to be annoying as usual. In fact, I can't remember if I ever found the navigation function. What I do remember is tripping across the CarPlay icon on the dash and thinking, "thank $DEITY!"
A CarPlay-compatible dash unit is what, $500 installed at the most? Don't buy floor mats and undercoating at the dealer and whatever car you buy next can have CarPlay.
Assuming that it is possible to do so. I'd drop another Pioneer AVIC unit in the Leaf were it not for the fact that the OEM in-dash is the interface for a bunch of other stuff. A lot of newer cars have the same problem: the OEM unit you'd like to replace does more than play music.
Apple could sell a lot simply by offering a superior car buying experience. While others have tried/done this, the median car buying experience is still as garbage as it's ever been.
Buying a new car is a nightmare. You start with a baseline model and think that's not too bad, tick some reasonable boxes and whoops, your car is now twice as expensive. Usually buying something is a pleasant experience but when it comes to cars? Hell no.
If they just offered one model that has everything and you pick the color, pay a monthly fee and they'd take care of the maintenance, insurance and whatnot.
Honestly, if you handle your own financing so that doesn't get mixed into the deal, have a hard and fast value in mind for a potential trade-in, and go to a no-haggle dealer, I'm not sure how it's a nightmare. The experience is probably better buying higher-end cars but if you know what you want, what its price is, and get a bank check for what you owe, there are a lot worse experiences.
The reason a lot of people have bad experiences is that they're trying to buy something that they can't really afford, they need financing, and have a trade-in they want to be worth more than it is and the whole transaction becomes this complicated shell game.
> Honestly, if you handle your own financing so that doesn't get mixed into the deal, have a hard and fast value in mind for a potential trade-in, and go to a no-haggle dealer,
You just described less than 1% of car transactions.
But not 1% of transactions that involve high end buyers and high end cars. As soon as you bring ordinary people and the mass market into the mix many of the "horrible things" inevitably emerge.
Sure you can and do have no haggle dealers who could offer take it or leave it finance options and trade ins. But I wonder how many mainstream car buying customers would consider that an improvement when told "that's what the car costs. Sorry if it doesn't fit your budget."
ADDED: I'm sure the experience of buying a Tesla is nice. But it's nice in the context of people who are not going in with no dollars to put down who want to find a way to get themselves into a Tesla.
I admit that I'm not a typical car buyer. I have no car and no experience in buying cars. What I would like to do is go to a website, pick a new car with reasonable features and see a hard number what it's going to cost me per month/year all in. Instead they make it a very tedious process to roughly come up with a number of how much this car is going to cost me in, say, 5 years and how does it compare to other cars.
Of course I should probably just lease a car but that is not very common where I live and thus prohibitively expensive. But I'd like to see it become more common as right now the risks and costs are quite hard to calculate.
carvana.com looks like they're coming close to this - depending on where you live, they'll deliver to your house/office, bring paperwork, deal with trade in, etc. And point/click on the website for what you want, except it's all used cars - you take what's in inventory. I've considered them for my next purchase, and it will largely come down to what they have onhand when I'm ready.
carmax is. i've got a friend who sell there. it definitely is no haggle, and there's not much pressure (maybe in your head, but really nothing from him anyway).
Their prices are generally a bit higher than an equivalent car somewhere else; that's the price you're paying for not having to concern yourself with haggling.
Bringing something truly disruptive to the automobile market could be impossible. There's so many companies actively working with cars that maybe there is no room for disruption.
Think about the smart watch market. Many other companies are iterating their products in public. Apple couldn't really surprise the customers with their product. Maybe they build a better product than others, but it was no iPad (which took the whole market by surprise).
> If they proceed with the Apple Car, I would imagine it would be a disrupting concept that Apple would be uniquely prepared to handle.
That's what people thought about the Apple Watch as well, but it seems these days Apple is content with releasing products that simply complement their portfolio rather than create new markets
Evolutionary consumer electronics. The infrastructure and ecosystem they already had in place was easily adapted to manufacturing the watches. I really can't see a marginally better car ever being worth the gigantic entry cost to the market.
Isn't that what they did with the smartphone market? The big difference is that the iPhone is a computer running OS X -- all things Apple has huge experience with. A car is something they have no experience with.
Would you argue the most significant part is that big tablet in the middle or the combination of the wheels, steering, axles, interior upholstery, steel frame, aluminum body panels, battery, etc?
Apple hasn't manufactured anything larger than can be easily Fedex'd. It seems like calling the Tesla an iPhone on wheels misses nearly all of the significant details.
Musk has made the point that a lot of that stuff can be purchased from or outsourced to third parties. Which is what the traditional car companies now do. Which is what Tesla does.
The traditional manufacturers maintained their expertise in engines, but, ironically, that's one thing that Tesla had absolutely no use for anyway.
> "instead of going all the way like Tesla's AutoPilot"
The name "AutoPilot" is misleading - it's anything but. An advanced lan-assist, sure, but compared to google, Tesla's technology is very far from going all the way.
Full EVs still have competitive vulnerability in range and refueling time. And they likely will for the next decade at least. It's the reason that EVs are still off the table for me.
Something in an innovative hybrid, like a Volt but better designed, would be much more interesting to me.
I'd guess fully autonomous and fully electric. I mean everyone here can see the writing on the wall that this kind of thing that is going to happen. If I'm Apple I skate to where the puck is going to be.
I have a feeling Apple might be working on a completely autonomous design; one that would not be legal to be tested on public roads due to current laws requiring human UI elements such as steering wheels and pedals.
Apple's goal is to make the first well polished version on the market, and then claim they invented it. Looking at MP3Players/Smartphones/TabletsWithPens.
In the long term do people see the automobile industry as a growth industry? Will there be more cars on the road per capita in the future or less?
Some trends make me think there will be less cars around in the future. The average age at which people get drivers licenses is rising for example as it is becoming easier to live without them. The car sharing network Car2Go, which one could look at as an early example of how a vast autonomous car network would work, has shown to take 11 cars off the road for each that it adds[1]. Lastly there is a renaissance in many cities right now with planners turning away from car oriented infrastructure, and more strongly focusing on pedestrians, cyclists and public transit. It seems to me that a lot of the car oriented thinking of the 1950s that resulted in the cities we see today is discredited amongst planners and they are trying to move us away from that.
I wonder where Apple believes the car market share is going. Even if automobiles aren't a growth industry they may think it's worthwhile to them to try to take a good share of the luxury market.
Africa is a prime destination for second hand cars coming in from developed countries. I'm skeptical there is much growth opportunity there for car manufacturers.
For the middle class, I can't help but wonder if it'll make much sense for them to actually own cars in 50-100 years if there are company-operated fleets of cheap self-driving vehicles - or at least more than one car per household. Time will tell.
>Africa is a prime destination for second hand cars coming in from developed countries. I'm skeptical there is much growth opportunity there for car manufacturers.
That's mostly because New Cars were unafforable to All.
At least in the places I've visited there are more and more new cars.
- because people are richer than a few years ago
- because financing options that didn't exist now do
- because laws banning imports of cars "older than x years" also help (even if they have unintended consequences)
Apple is going to seamlessly combine Uber, ZipCar, Tesla's Autopilot, and the US Drone program.
Here is what they are going to build:
A fleet of vehicles piloted remotely like drones, using all the the "tesla autopilot" safety features as augmentation to make the job of remote piloting easier.
The vehicles will be summoned by the iphone.
The fleet will have all-electrics and hybrids, where hybrids are a fallback depending on availability and trip range.
The "front" seats will face the "rear" seats.
Windows will be dynamically shaded from transparent to opaque.
The "doors" will slide to open, including part of the roof, allowing passengers to embark/disembark while standing.
There will be a separate app for auto-steering in every set of road conditions imaginable. If you want to be safe, all you have to do is to find the right app out of 100's of thousands that's highly rated and doesn't crash.
Seriously, I think there will be a change in scope and timing with regards to the roll-out of automated vehicles. I suspect it will happen first with trucks and buses in contexts with limited exposure to urban traffic.
Apple could easily make a branded car. The entire dashboard is usually manufactured separately and installed as a unit.[1] Apple could build those, with screens and Jonathan Ive design. This would come with a matching interior package and exterior logos. Like the "Ford F-150 King Ranch Edition".
The next step up would to have some car company, perhaps in China, build them a chassis, powertrain, and body, to which Apple would add their dashboard and interior, and possibly the sensors and actuators for self-driving. Here are 10 new electric cars from China.[2] Apple could help them open up the US market.
There's no reason for Apple to get into the sheet metal stamping business, even though Tesla did.
If the past is any indication Apple will most likely improve on what is already out there
Mp3 player, Cell phone, buying music over internet, GUI, ... were all around before Apple made them big.
It's interesting to speculate about what a 'fast follower' model looks like with cars. Cars have been around a long time. You propose that Tesla has sort of v2.0'ed cars with their fast, attractive, semi-autonomous, electric thing. That could be.
But a fast follower model doesn't admit for autonomous cars; nobody is doing anything like that yet. And we are all sort of imagining like the self driving Apple car "carved from a solid billet of aluminium" (cue Jony Ives), I think.
Apple seems to have the market lead in UI/UX, Product Design, Supply Chain and some forms of Silicon. I guess that could all add up to a greenfield effort at just a car, but better.
I think it's more likely that this is a turning point in Apple's strategy, and that they see the need to make some big bets, like Google. In any event, I'm super curious about what will come out in 2020, or whatever.
I've thought a lot about this and don't think that full autonomy is necessary for Apple's car to be successful. I don't even think they need to be anywhere near as good as Tesla. In fact, they probably can't because Tesla Autopilot gets better through the experience of the cars, and that kind of software data expertise is not in Apple's wheelhouse.
Recently I've tested all the auto-sensing, autopilot, and what not features of the latest generation of cars. I've gone on dozens of test drives and I think that something around as good as Honda Sensing will be sufficient for the next car cycle (5-7 years). If they can make iterative improvments that will be even better, but I don't think we are as close to the kind of car Apple would want to sell in the autonomy field. Well understood driving cities like NYC and SF are just not a big enough splash for Apple.
Why Apple will be very successful: Recently they've started to revamp and expand their retail Flagship stores all over the world have recently been remodeled, all to be much larger. I think this footprint of stores, larger than Teslas, will be huge in getting people to buy the cars, thereby circumventing the dealership model. Tesla was the pioneer here, and Apple will ride on their coattails. Apple has incredibly supply chain leverage and capability. In the last 5 years, the cost of batteries has gone down significantly. Yet all the hybrid cars utilizing batteries are still very expensive. The brand new Volvo XC90 is $20k more expensive for a 9kWh pack. With Apple's supply chain and margin control capabilities, they should be able to comfortably source Li-Ion batteries in the $200-$300 range per kWh. Apple also crushes every single other computer and phone manufacturer when it comes to their onboarding experience. This and their experience in UI/UX will be key. The knob-less experience in cars is total dogshit. No one does a good job of realizing that the user experience should not be a monolithic touchscreen for things that are NOT media related. Sure make all Media touchscreen enabled/driven. But not the AC/Heat, and in my mind the volume for the AV system at the lest. If apple can solve that, and make it easy to pair a phone with the infotainment system, then with their competitive pricing and superior experience they will destroy the competition. All the legacy manufacturers are still stuck in the wrong paradigm. Only Tesla is positioned to compete with Apple, it's a shame they didn't buy Tesla earlier and let Musk run both companies. Tim is great don't get me wrong, but with Musk at the helm they would have been totally unstoppable. Tim is a genius at what he does, but he's not the kind of visionary CEO that can launch the car like an Elon or Steve could.
Also they just took a major stake in Didi Chuxing which I assume meant they had access to a raft of GPS points to use for training machine/deep learning models.
The car industry is ready for some disruption. Current car makers are good at what they are doing, but there have been few entirely new developments. So it is no wonder that one of the most desirable cars at the moment is the Tesla, a car which comes from a "startup" and is electrical.
The transition to electrical cars is what is shaking up the industry. All the special knowledge around the creation of combustion engine is no longer needed. And a lot of the non-engine components are sourced by suppliers, which are also happy to supply companies like Tesla. The Tesla shares quite a few components with the well known German car brands. This allows new car companies to enter the market relatively easily.
And beyond the fact that Apple can hire car engineering veterans, Apple is an excellent product design company. The Apple watch should be a warning. All discussions about the usefulness of smart watches aside, one important thing is, that Apple enters an entirely new product category, but if you look of the design and quality of their stainless steel bracelet, it is much better than most of the Rolex bracelets at a fraction of the price. So I would not be surprised, if while the pure driving part (electrical motor, suspension) is rather off the shelf, the overall construction of the car could be both different and unexpected by the current players.
In the short term I can see how an incredibly well-made car with AR tech would make people want to own them.
Long term however I believe cars will just be a shared network of autonomous vehicles for moving people and things. In other words a shared commodity with cheap rental prices versus ownership. That doesn't seem like a market for Apple. But hey, if they're investing in electric vehicles then that's better for everyone.
I agree, but I think we're at least 25 years away from that vision being realized. That leaves Apple a couple decades to sell a really good electric car which may have some "smart" safety features, but probably zero automation.
It appears the key success metric will be companies who:
1. Entered the emerging electric vehicle space with a "good enough" product that people will buy it.
2. Continuously innovate with new models. Since these are large pieces of machinery, this appears to be the money Tesla is leaving on the table by doing all their cars in-house.
(maybe) 3. Autonomy. Nobody knows what this will come to mean, and lawmakers are being wary. Add to that Tesla's direct-to-consumer model stirring up the lawmakers, and autonomy may get killed by the lawyers (non-zero risk, not trying to predict the future with any certainty).
Tesla will be offering automation for (presumably) less money in 2021. I don't think Apple can afford to not have automation, nor do I think they could offer something appealing enough to overcome not having automation.
If Tesla can create automation in a short amount of time, I have no doubt that a massive computer company filled with smart software engineers and a maps group can do it.
> Long term however I believe cars will just be a shared network of autonomous vehicles for moving people and things
I doubt it.
The majority of drivers on the road are your typical 9-5 commuters. For them it will still be more convenient (no need to wait for another car) and cheaper to just buy a car and there is still something intrinsic to human nature about "owning" something. People leave all manner of goods in their car.
I see autonomous vehicles taking over taxis however.
I hate owning a car. It takes up space, I'm only using it a small percentage of the time, and most of the time when I want to drive around I've been drinking anyway.
While I agree (I have a bunch of stuff in my car), I think it's important to consider cities like New York: where there's substantial cost or effort required to own a car, people are content to use alternatives (cabs, Uber, subway, Citibike, etc).
If the alternative is readily available (ie. on-demand automated vehicles), I think the maintenance expense reductions and capital redeployment possible by automating transport will motivate law-makers to increasingly penalize private car use. If you have to pay an extra $5000/year for a private vehicle permit, a lot of people will switch.
I've been using car sharing services for about two years and that doesn't happen. The companies know who used the car and they have their credit card. A customer can report for damages and cleanliness and if the car you pick is not OK you do report, to demonstrate it's not your fault. The worst I found is a half filled plastic water bottle.
Airlines have a very short amount of time to clean many seats. In the short term, electric cars will take a while to charge and cleaning can be done then.
Tesla's market cap is $33 billion. Apple has $200 billion in cash. Why don't they just buy Tesla? They'll spend more than that trying to recreate all the work Teslas already done. I feel like this would help make the future happen faster.
I am both a Tesla and an Apple fan, but I really hope this does not happen. We need all the competition in the electric car market we can get. So I want Tesla and Apple to compete who makes the best car. And considering, that Tesla invested perhaps 1-2 billion into the creation of their cars, I don't think that buying Tesla would save Apple any money.
Tesla has been working hard to raise additional capital so they can deliver Model 3. Apple has a lot of capital. Perhaps they could come to an agreement. An acquisition he didn't agree to would probably be unwise since he's so key to the company.
The more important question here is, why Bob? Does it mean Apple has an culture problem that is hard for other high rank managerial grade to fit in? Why has Bob Retired and then Un-retired?
This. Is Apple going to start making a world class ICE from scratch? No. Could they eventually? Yes of course. But why would they want to?
A car without an ICE is a reduced complexity space to engineer a vehicle in. I'll bet they can figure out how to iterate from an electric mule to a safe vehicle just fucking fine. People unfamiliar with the auto industry may also be surprised to learn just how many parts on a Model S tesla doesn't make.
But an ICE? Fuck I wouldn't want to start that war with zero patents.
i find it interesting that the project is described as the "autonomous, electric-vehicle initiative." isn't there a compelling enough productin the electric vehicle aspect, without the autonomous piece as well?
or does apple believe that the "autonomous" component is the real stand out feature?
It really doesn't make sense for Apple to manufacture traditional cars - they're expensive to produce, have steep support requirements, allow limited driver interaction points to avoid distraction, etc. Apple's strength is in combining hardware and software in a way that makes interaction intuitive. If you have to actually drive your car, there's not a whole lot of room for that beyond what's already being done with CarPlay. It makes a lot more sense to create an autonomous vehicle and treat the entire cabin as an interactive experience that people will spend hours a day playing with and spending money in.
"It makes a lot more sense to create an autonomous vehicle and treat the entire cabin as an interactive experience that people will spend hours a day playing with and spending money in."
Would be cool if Apple skipped the "car" and went straight to a stylish and modern "RV", basically a small apartment that can also drive you around (autonomously).
Look at this RV tour and imagine something that's a bit bigger in living space (but same size overall (no big engine, no drivers area etc)):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tylz5sfCAOc
It might not be realistic yet, but in a few years maybe, especially if solar panels gets better. Which i'm guessing Apple is doing a lot of research on as we speak...
And if you loose/somebody tows it, you'd just log on to iCloud and use the "Find my House" feature ;-)
With a product targeted at 2021 and which will likely see delays, not building in autonomy from the start likely means that it'll be behind the curve when it ships. "Skate to where the puck is going" and all that.
By 2021, (hopefully) the primary mode of individual transportation in developed cities will be using your phone/watch/R2D2 to call a self-driving electric car to your location.
Things have already begun to fall into place for that reality.
The cars might then use AI/ML/networking to optimize their individual routes and schedules for their daily passengers, to ensure a continuously smooth flow of traffic.
Few people may even need to own a personal car.
What might Apple's advantage be in that world? The same as today I guess; seamless cross-device integration and maybe an ecosystem of in-car apps. Would it be enough to compel someone to purchase their own, likely very expensive, car?
> By 2021, (hopefully) the primary mode of individual transportation in developed cities will be using your phone/watch/R2D2 to call a self-driving electric car to your location.
In 5 years? Unlikely.
> What might Apple's advantage be in that world?
If the world changed that fast, then instead of trying to sell cars, Apple would just create their own car service, and integrate it with iOS/Apple Maps/Siri/etc., and everyone in the Apple ecosystem would seamlessly also be on Apple personal transportation platform. (At least, in the places that service had rolled out, which would probably be chosen in order by the density and likely transport profitability of the existing Apple ecosystem population.)
I think this is insightful: Apple doesn't need to sell automated EVs, they just need them to exist, and be Apple-y. Which probably means doing all the design and prototyping in-house, and then outsourcing final manufacturing to a Foxconn-equivalent with Apple QA.
The timeline seems optimistic, but 2025 could be feasible in key cities.
Whether the cars are individually owned or shared, somebody's going to have to build them. Apple could easily sell into a shared pool too, if that's how things are by then. (Although I think you're 3-5x too optimistic for how long it'll take to get there.)
> But building a car is complicated and Apple has struggled to define a differentiated vision for its vehicle, these people said. Some of the automobile industry veterans have clashed with longtime company employees on how best to proceed.
Conflict can be a good thing in this case. Instead of Apple running off and doing the "Apple thing" which isn't grounded, they get pulled back in by veterans. Likewise, veterans have their assumptions challenged.
Agreed, it will be very interesting to see if "Apple Scale" [1] thinking works in automotive design[2] and manufacturing. Apple can buy 10,000 CNC machines for an iPhone frame, but there are a couple thousand parts at least that size in a car.
The difference in physical scale between a phone and a car should not be dismissed... but I'm very interested to see what comes out of the process.
Apple's ability to put together a supply chain and get the right partners in place is not to be underestimated.
The logistics of building a car are surely harder by orders of magnitude, you can't just FedEx cars around like you can crates of watch parts, but I'm sure there's a team that can execute at this level within Apple.
If I were GM, Ford or any other big vendor I'd keep a close eye on the supply chain for industry robots. When Apple makes a move they're probably going to buy up a year's supply of these.
There is also a big difference in the importance of reliability. Half the people I see with iPhones older than a year have broken screens. But with a car, you can't engineer it to last for two years and then expect the owner to scrap it and buy a new one. For all the talk of AR, shiny UX etc, keep in mind that a car has to retain at least some resale value for at least ten years, preferrably closer to twenty. Otherwise you'll be left with a lot of angry customers. Planned obsolesence is out of the question.
This is true - secondary markets can make a huge difference in how affordable a car is perceived to be. Cars which are considered to have a long life command a high resale value, which cuts the real cost of buying new.
