Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources
reuters.com
reuters.com
Apple is fundamentally now a company that can move immense amounts of capital into new industries with the underlying ethos of user experience. Apple Card was perhaps a dipping of the toes moment.
In theory, Tesla shouldn't be worth what it is because the tech behind it is increasingly getting commoditized (though they work hard to stay slightly ahead). But people love Tesla and it's the first choice EV because they've really thought through the UX of a semi-self driving car EV thoroughly.
Apple is just about the only company with a similar ethos and enough money and patience to be a viable competitor and have a competitive brand known for quality.
Also: insane supply-chain management chops, a skill that is more and more transferable - especially for electric cars.
For instance, logistically things are very different in the automotive space. Many, many more people are required to ship a single unit. You also have many more variables that can hold up a production line anywhere in the hierarchy because you rely on more 3rd parties for parts. While these things are also true of consumer electronics, you may rely on a dozen suppliers for an iPhone, car companies often rely on hundreds.
Materials are also very different in the automotive space. You have to build with materials that will last 100k miles driving a 80mph in all weather, day/night, freezing/scorching etc etc. It is a very long tail to cover. Apple can do it, but it will take years and many, many partners to get it done.
I'm also not sure what Apple's edge here is. At this point all I really want out of an entertainment center is a screen for my phone to plug into. Everything else is better done as knobs and buttons.
Apple does have smart people, and they obviously have a ton of cash. So they absolutely could make a play here. But to imagine that they'll walk in to a market that Tesla has been growing successfully in for a decade and be competitive out of the gate seems like a stretch.
What does that matter?
There are Car manufacturers that have basically had infinite capitalization and funding for a decade and the legal system + technology barriers just didn't move. Supply chain was never an issue.
Apple's not going to see any different results, so I am puzzled by this optimism.
When is the last time an electronic mfg had to deal with a billion dollar lawsuit because they didn't follow industry best practices for design like Toyota did after the acceleration scandal? Does Apple have experience with the NHTSB or other relevant regulatory agencies? Sure, there is a lot of gatekeeping in the auto industry, but it's for good reason. Cars can and do regularly kill people. It is not the same as making an iPhone.
They can make phones because they hire/hired experts who can make phones. I doubt they would use those same electrical engineers to design the brake systems. I don't think there's anything evidence to suggest that they couldn't acquire/hire the right talent.
Minor side note. I'm sure a lot of the experience is well-designed but I can't help but grimace every time I see that huge touch tablet instead of physical buttons on the dashboard.
Like with phones, having touch screen control everything provides extraordinary flexibility in rolling out new software features and ultimately improving UX.
Remember this design is supposed to lead the way into an FSD future achieved through purely software updates.
Whether they succeed in automating the majority of miles driven, they designed the car with that future fully in mind.
For what it’s worth, it’s one of my favorite parts of the car, and certainly it’s my kids favorite part of the car.
Mostly agree, though I suspect a few of the major car companies like Volkswagon/Audi and Toyota/Lexus are capable of this as well.
But yes, Apple has the cash reserves to not just manufacture electric cars, but to build out the necessary infrastructure network as well:
- charging stations blanketing the country
- battery replacement stations for faster "charging" on the fly
- local maintenance stations
- etc..
Apple could centralize sales to Apple's website, and transform "dealer networks" into "maintenance networks". Sales can be handled in a centralized manner, but maintenance still requires locality.
All that requires large upfront CapEx, but Apple is one of the few that has more than enough cash reserves for that.
People tend to overlook just how many service centers are available for the big three (about 10K), not even counting independent garages. Tesla has..500. How many will Apple have? If the Tesla service horror stories are anything to go by, I can only imagine what it would be like for an iCar once production ramps up.
All of these things are outside of Apple's core focus and they are unlikely to possess an advantage over other players. Sort of like automobiles.
The world is starting to feel like 1999 all over again. People's visions are getting further and further removed from reality.
Steve Jobs = Elon Musk in a different market.
Without someone in control who can make major decisions quickly, capital will not be enough for Apple.
No need to theorize at this point. Plenty have pointed out how overinflated Teslas value is at this point. It's pretty much cult of personality that is propping them up at this point. Tesla is actually very similar to Apple in that they "pioneered" a new market and that has created an identity of leadership in that market. I'm not sure Tesla is going to be able to keep up as the competition continues to grow rapidly.
From my experience, Tesla's tech (I drive a VW) is ahead of their competition pretty handily.
The new Ford Mustang Mach looks competitive, but even that is still at least 9 months away.
The VW id4 EV is sold out, and they are taking pre-orders for the next batch.
Tesla has first mover advantage when it comes to mass market EV's. It's not just cult of personality.
Was it really? Dozens of companies have credit cards. Walmart, Uber, Paypal, Venmo, Best Buy, Amazon...it didn't real strike me as big things happening when Apple announced their credit card.
The user experience of many Apple products is notably substandard. Maps, homepod, keyboard, list goes on. What Apple is good at is integration (both horizontal and vertical) and managing user perception through design.
Actually _making_ cars is doomed to be a failure. You need a massive workforce and very large factories. It is fairly low margin compared to even computer hardware let alone software. Then they have to support these cars which means you need a massive service network. It really is a bad bad idea.
Making a car with the likes of Magna is just plain stupid. You can’t get any sort of volume to make the car cheaper and get the OS into the hands of millions of drivers.
Here is what they should focus on:
1.) Sensor suite for self driving. 2.) AI computer for self driving. 3.) Main computer and screen(s) for navigation, car controls and games/audio/video apps. 4.) Autonomous software.
Work directly with automakers from the ground up and design the vehicles jointly with them to ensure the systems feel native rather than bolted on.
Also I think they and the market (investors) dont want/expect them to be a part of a supply chain.
Apple has had multiple credit cards in the past.
Edit: found this after more Googling: https://www.cultofmac.com/614988/apple-credit-card-histor/
With all due respect, I would like to articulate and counter your point with some insights.
Tesla as it stands today at ~$600B is priced at monopoly status - that they have 'won' the next decade in transportation and electrification. Whether you buy into that or not, consider the following:
- Tesla is the first (and so far only) company that has successfully been able to produce electric vehicles with positive gross margins at scale. No other competitors have scaled (yet) and EVs made from traditional automakers have been sold thus far at negative gross margins (i.e. each one that leaves the lot costs thousands or more dollars at a loss). While Tesla 'just broke out' as a stock in 2020, starting with large cash-flow generation from their factory in China - they have been working at this for well over 5 years. The real challenge for everyone making EVs is scale, and depending on how you slice it, Tesla is - really, really far ahead regarding their head start. (Model 3 was ANNOUNCED in 2016 and first cars were produced and delivered in 2017. Look at this announcement today end of 2020, and car production in 2024 - not even accounting for scale. This is really hard to do.)
- Your point about commoditized parts is valid in theory. However, as someone in the {renewables} industry who has had many first hand conversations with those buying Li-ion batteries at scale - the little talked about challenge for everyone else in automotive is 'where are you getting your batteries'? Li-ion cell manufacturers are generally broken up into Tier1, Tier2, Tier3 suppliers. From my conversations even pre-pandemic with folks - Tier 1 supplies were already allocated SEVERAL years out. Tier2 supplies are hard to acquire in large volumes as well. That leaves you with 'shitty' Tier3 supplies for which most of those cells are ending up in things like scooters and Energy Storage (not cars). And while some are good, suppliers can be tier 3 either due to small volumes or unreliability (must all be tested, and even still its questionable how many cycles you'll really get). Automakers want Tier 1. Tesla's latest event, 'Battery Day' while 'disappointing' the street and non-industry folks for not announcing some 'Million mile' or other 'groundbreaking technology' is significant because the limitation to Tesla's growth, much like others for making EVs, comes down to batteries. The factories need to be built - and for most of what optimists imagine for a rapidly changing future, many of those shovels have not hit the ground yet on the forward infrastructure. And that isn't even accounting for the fact that it takes at least 1-2 years to get a single cell factory ramped up. And we aren't even talking about the mining capacity (particularly lithium and nickel) that all of these announcements imply already exists.
And back to Tesla's valuation - there is lots of focus on their current valuations assuming they have solved self-driving. There's so much going on with Tesla as a stock (look at Tesla Semi-truck, their Energy Storage businesses for example). And the winks and nods towards launching an uber-like ridesharing service. While I am very skeptical of their ability to have self-driving 'done' in their posted timeframes, I think their value is priced that , whenever it happens - they will be first. So interpret that as you may.
When factoring in the likelihood that they will be the next apple for transportation across personal & commercial transportation for the next 1-2 decades, you can end up at 600B easily. If you are interested in seeing how, just on the driving component - Ark Invest has posted their models if you want to take a deeper read to see if you agree. [1]
And 2 cents on Apple's role & competitive advantages here: They, prior to Tesla were for a while one of the larger single consumers for Li-ion batteries (Macbook, Ipods, iPhones, etc) in electronics. Add in their expertise with battery management and longevity systems (but for systems of a smaller size) combined with their existing supplier relationships & software capabilities, if I had to bet on Apple or one of the existing automotive companies - I'd probably make my bet on Apple purely from a capabilities and competencies perspective.
[1] https://github.com/ARKInvest/ARK-Invest-Tesla-Valuation-Mode...
What numbers are we talking about here?
Tesla seems to be the most sold EV car to date, with more than 650k model 3s shipped so far. That's remarkable, but it's the same magnitude as the second on the list, Nissan Leaf, which has 500k shipped.
There's also more to electric than battery EVs. It was obvious from the start the transition to electric is real but that real scale will start out with hybrid electric for the first decade or two. Any manufacturer serious about scale would want to start in that end because in order to be good, models needs to be designed from the ground up. In comparison, Toyota has shifted 15M Priuses. That's scale.
Making cars isn't just a question of R&D, it's a question of being able to manufacture at scale and quality.
This is something that Telsa have really struggled with - as a result the reliability of Tesla cars isn't as good as it should be. Telsa need to really crack this - but it's not as easy as it seems - that's why certain car brands succeed in petrol era, and others didn't - the ability to make them well is what, in the end, separated companies.
Electric cars are fundamentally a lot simpler than try to drive the car forward with a series of controlled explosions - but the key usability challenges are:
- charging times - range
Progress is being made on both, but if somebody can really crack them, that's the game changer.
Electric vehicles aren't new, as a child my milk was delivered from an electric vehicle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_float
I guess they are the company to 'try it' but really it's a monster bet.
It'd be interesting if they have an 'angle' that allows them to start small, possibly with a specific kind of public transport or closed-system solution for urban transport, with entities like Dubai (i.e. cash flush) buying in big.
Car = game console = phone = laptop
Just another platform to own, so that one might control and tax users there-on.
Which, for what it's worth, is an illustration of how our intuitions about future likelihoods aren't very good. We tend to see as implausible things that are too different from how they are today, overlooking how much things can change in a few years.
My opinion doesn't mean anything, but I think in 2030, Elon Musk will be the richest person in the world by an order of magnitude and Tesla will have the largest market cap in the world
Disclaimer - long TSLA and drive a model 3
Every other manufacturer will be licensing Tesla’s IP, IMHO.
They execute superbly, had a brilliant strategy of starting as a luxury vehicle to be the beachhead for getting an economy of scale, and were risk takers, but lets not pretend they invented the market. They didn't.
No doubt they have loads of superficial patents though, but Tesla has an open patent policy and a declaration that they won't sue, so that doesn't seem to matter much.
Apple can buy a company like Magna Int with pocket change. Recall that Magna made the "Sony" electric car, bumper to bumper (Sony put in some screens demonstrating a Sony-esque UI), because that's what Magna does -- they're the maker behind a lot of automobiles, either in part or whole. And Magna has loads of patents around the engineering of vehicles because they've been doing it for decades.
Elon is rapidly turning into a toxic personality for (a bit more than) half the country.
It is irrepearable and components are impossible to obtain because Apple has punitive contract with suppliers.
This week assebly line workers are burning down the factory in india because of wage theft.
What in the above gives you an impression that the car they build can be trusted with the life of your family?
This fetishising of Apple has to stop, making pretty laptops doesn't mean shit when lives are at stake
Would you be excited to drive a moving vehicle designed by same company that has class-action lawsuits against many of it’s mechanical innovations: butterfly keyboard, failing screen hinges, bending iPhones, etc
On second thought, maybe Apple doesn’t actually have great mechanical engineering innovation chops.
Also, 2024 still seems aggressive to deploy self-driving for real.
I also don't think they will try for self-driving out of the gate. I know a good number of the experts in this field and no one thinks full autonomy is ready. The moat that Waymo has built with their particular kind of testing and iteration is diametrically opposed to how companies like Tesla, Lyft, Uber etc have tried to do self-driving. Even they are going to be restricted to the easiest of locals for years.
I have to strongly disagree with this. The touchscreen is great for the vast majority of things it replaces. The only physical controls I ever miss are for temperature (which is a very minor complaint) and windshield wipers (though I would also accept auto wipers that actually work). I do think the UI smoothness and touch latency could be slightly improved, and Apple would do better, but Tesla is already so far ahead of every other car manufacturer there that it's not even funny.
This is both the most functional and most beautiful design choice I've ever experienced. My favorite part of my Model 3. You quickly come to realize that voice control does everything and that you should never have to reach for a button or fiddle with climate controls, etc.
Tesla realized what all other car manufacturers failed to see, you don't need physical buttons because you don't need buttons of any kind. I'm never buying another antiquated car with physical buttons again.
I’m just hoping that they don’t relegate a lot of stuff like climate control to a Siri-only interface.
I wouldn't have minded a HUD that I could turn on and off though.
If you really want to make this fun, you don't even need to know as you can use traffic aware cruise control, a feature many cars have, to set and forget your speed on any road.
I have two issues with the UI/Human interface that Telsa has followed. First, their automatic wiper solution is dreadful and while you can instant a wipe action by pressing the button on the end of the stalk I believe the variable rate should be available on the stalk.
The second is that I think the steering wheel would be better served with buttons dedicated to cell phone use, namely accept, ignore, mute, and hangup.
However it should be noted the cars voice controls respond very well and you can easily change the temperature should you want that way, there are a lot of settings easily changed by voice but Tesla does not alert you to them.
The best way to grade their UI though is that I can muscle memory activate many features including one level down options. Of course you can just let the car drive and play with the screen all you want, something I have done to prove a point but the simple fact is...
I rarely if ever, as in nearly never, need to access anything through the screen as its all set and forget. Now I get into other cars and think, damn this has enough buttons and screens to be an airliner.
It won't be but a generation before we look back and wonder how anyone though six gauges, forty buttons, and three or more levers, were ease of operation, Not all cars will be as simple as a Tesla but the age of forty buttons is going away.
(Seriously, count how many buttons are in your car - then try to remember how often you use them)
Nobody has figured it out out yet, and a 'moat' for a market that is basically impossible to a big money-maker is not a 'moat' at all.
The quest for self driving is not the same as the quest for the first commercial deployment. Solving general self-driving is the real quest.
And I don't trust any experts to predict this correctly, as nobody knows yet what the solution actually is. Some experts say one thing, others say other things.
But they also have an extensive partnership with Waymo: https://self-driving.lyft.com/riders/
I also know that both Alphabet and GM have large stakes in Lyft. I bought stock in Lyft with the expectation that they will one day be acquired by one of their partners.
I test drove a model 3 and ... couldn't buy one because of the dash.
I think there should be - always - status in line of sight of the driver.
The model 3 dashboard in the center of the car is just a bunch of bathwater with no baby.
Some people won't care. I've had friends say they got used to it.
I can... almost... think of it like an off-road motorcycle with a handlebar and no instruments.
But personally I couldn't buy in.
Related, I think the controls on the model 3 have also been over-minimized. The scroll wheels have the feel of a $3 computer mouse, and autopilot overloaded on the gear selector is cheap, not elegant.
It also totally sounds like something Apple would do.
I think this might just come down to personal preference. After owning a Model 3 for a while now, I can't stand my Audi (or other cars) that aren't touch screens. There are far too many buttons and dials. It is overwhelming (and ugly to me). The non-touch UIs are clunky and confusing and often far more distracting for me as I try to figure them out.
There's room for more than one car company like this. If Apple brings high quality, tight fit and finish, elegant design, software focus, vertical integration (including their new M1 processor tech), logistics support (charging station network, maintenance, etc), and "next-level batteries" to the mix, then I'm sure they'll find space in the market.
If Apple can execute with electric cars as they've executed with consumer electronics, then they'll be competing not just with Tesla, but directly with Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, etc.
I don't know if Apple's quality is going to translate to cars either unless they poach a bunch of people. Safety features will compromise the quality at some point, but maybe they're good enough to work around it elegantly.
Plus people paid a premium for Apple's quality, but are they willing to do so when that premium is multiple thousands of dollars extra for a car? They could afford low/zero cost financing if they wanted to.
Tesla is still far from that. I've yet to meet a tesla owner who's car just "Works" without any issues or fiddling.
GM's & Nissan's EVs fit that bucket. But they are designed as "buget" cars and dont evoke a desire from buyers to be excited about them on a day-to-day basis.
Honestly, if Apple bought out the existing non-Tesla charging networks and dedicated even a sliver of their UX talent to improving the charging experience, they would really push things forward. This is, of course, assuming that buying the charging networks would make it past the anti-trust people.
In the car market, being a different brand is a differentiator. Ferrari, McLaren, Bugatti, Lamborghini, and Porsche don't offer vastly different products. But the car market is heavily driven by people wanting something different from their friends. Once Teslas become popular enough, people will want something else just to be different.
Extremely good build quality? Accessories notwithstanding, most of their products look and feel like they were built extremely well.
Even their failures like the butterfly keyboard looked and felt like they were built to extremely tight tolerances.
Instruct an engineer to design something that is not crap and they will do it, and it will be mass produced with tight tolerance if specified like that. On the manufacturing side... Apple does not manufacture anyway.
And that brings me to: a car is not exactly the same thing as your small household appliance. Like we saw with Tesla, it is not trivial to do with a good build quality, both on the design front and on the build front (way more difficult than small and mostly static objects) -- and it is harder to reject a car with a not stellar build quality because that's more expensive and a huge part of the value is in the mechanics. And quite related: for now Apple does not manufacture, if they start to do cars, will they? Otherwise who will?
I bet they support CarPlay, at least :). I have CarPlay on all my cars excdept for my Tesla, and it still annoys me. I won't buy another Tesla that doesn't support it.
It'll only work with an iPhone.
Really? Why are you not curious what the differentiator of all the car companies out there is? Why don't we just have one car company?
(Hint: There is so much demand, so many different tastes, budgets and features and regulation, that a single company will never serve all of them. Tesla is a niche product and I for one would never buy one)
The iPhone was special in the regard that there simply was NO competition. We are not talking EV vs combustion (which was Tesla's main step, and even still, everyone knew EVs would work and how they work, but nobody was ready to fully commit to them yet). We are talking horses vs. cars. Apple managed to establish themselves in a market that most companies didn't even think exist...
So no comparison here. All Tesla has done is make EVs more approachable and "cool" for the masses. However they have literally ZERO differentiator compared to established car companies. They are going to tank so hard stock wise in the next 10 years that investors will wonder what hit them.
> they have literally ZERO differentiator compared to established car companies. They are going to tank so hard stock wise
Their stock is insanely overvalued, no argument there. But they have one of the largest installed and fastest growing DC charging networks, software that doesn't suck, and the most capable and fastest improving driver assist system enabled by a proprietary custom ASIC. That's far from "ZERO" differentiators, especially in a world where other manufacturers keep faceplanting on their software efforts over and over again.
I can imagine a dystopian future with custom non-standard parts, specialist repair centers, restrictions on what you can do with it, Apple being able to track everywhere we go, what we listen to, who is with us, and establishing a network of devices that work together but not with other brands. And that's just their phones, imagine their cars!
I mean, a lot of the recent right-to-repair controversy in the US has been centered around farmers, and their ongoing battles against machine producers / makers like John Deere.
The gist is that you can't do jack sh!t on a modern John Deere, because all the software involved to diagnose/modify/operate their machines are strictly proprietary, and only available to the company, or authorized dealers and repair shops.
Here's how this could work with personal cars:
Let's say you purchase a Apple Car, and after a month the low washer fluid message starts flashing. Not only does it flash, but every 10 minutes or so it interferes with your whole media system, with some voice stating that you need to fill up on washer fluid.
Turns out your washer fluid level is actually OK, seems to be some sensor error, or bug in the software.
Problem is - you can't touch the car, mechanically or the software. Any modifications will essentially brick the car.
Only way to get this error fixed, is to bring the car to some Apple repair shop, where a tech will fix the problem in 30 seconds, and bill you $1000 for the work.
Other than the bricking part, that's the kind of stuff farmers are experiencing with quite expensive machines.
They started doing that with iPhones.
There are lots of reasons why you might want to stay inside the walled garden. The higher the value of the car, the stronger they become.
I feel like people pretend that building a car is way harder than it actually is in 2020.
All the components to build a car are readily available. A person can buy the parts on their own and put them together in their garage. It isn't like they have to go get a pick axe and start mining ore to create everything from scratch. Apple just needs to buy the components that already work, and then do what they do best and perfect that parts that haven't been perfected. In this case, the battery, the motor, the onboard computer, and the software. And based off what Apple has built in the past, these are the things that Apple would be REALLY good at.
It isn't like they have to invent tires and drive shafts.
I know I undersold the difficulty of making a car in this comment, but come one, Apple is 87 times more valuable than Ford. They have enough cash on hand to buy Ford 5 times. Money might not solve all problems, but it really really helps.
Which one? I mean, even a Tesla has over 40 computers on the CAN bus. Cars may look simple when they just have a touchscreen interface, but they're really a small network of computers that can be driven. Engineering, and then building a car is really hard. Tesla has proven an upstart can do it, but they've been at it almost 20 years and Musk himself says it is very hard to build cars.
I'm sure Apple can do it if they put the resources in, but they're less than 1000 people deep at this point. 1000 people is a small department working on something you've never heard of at a large automaker. I don't even mean top secret stuff, I just mean day-to-day shit that most people don't think about, like drafting repair routines for each possible thing that can go wrong that someone in the field needs to fix in a timely manner. You take your car into get repaired and only 2-3 people may touch it, but that's nothing compared to the hundreds of people that worked on the information and software that those 2-3 people used to fix your car.
Not to mention the different software that is running in all of the 40+ computers in the car... or the hardware and software that's used to communicate with/diagnose problems with/update those computers.
Even after the car is engineered, it takes over a year to then engineer all of the tooling, equipment and processes that will be used to mass produce that car, put that tooling in place, configure it, test it, train people to use it, etc.
Modern cars are marvelous machines, and there's a nearly unbelievable amount of effort that goes into designing, building and repairing them.
Apple can do it if they really want do, but lets not pretend it is easy.
As Gruber quipped - “This car is as smart as Siri” sounds like a threat, not a selling point.
Going all-in on something like this when you're not ready is just a waste of capital and nobody wants to be the next Fisker. Historically speaking, Apple has usually made sure all their ducks are in a row before launching something, whether it's going into processor design, audio, or launching a credit card. There's quite a bit of chess pieces that were put into position first, and a lot of that was done via hiring, acquisitions, and partnerships. That should demonstrate that Apple has gotten into other industries regardless of how much management or shareholders previously understood the problem. In other words, they seem to understand when they don't understand.
With BMW declining to be a partner all those years ago (allegedly), it makes sense to me that they would put their plans on the back burner. I'm still skeptical that they can (or want to) do this without a major manufacturing partner, but we'll see. Or, given how conservative they seem to be with their capital, maybe we never will. The AirPods Max project allegedly started 4 years ago, and those are just headphones.
Or beyond their hundreds of billions of dollars in cash to hire a team needed to deliver on this.
Then how can Elon Musk pull it off with only 50%?
Also, I'm just a guy on the internet, I really hope Cook sees this and decides to spite me and build an awesome car, I'm also a dreamer.
I guess there is a premium you pay when acquiring a public company, but still astounding numbers.
[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/29/apple-q4-cash-hoard-heres-ho...
Apple Watch, iPad, iPhone, and iPod... These were not the first products in their category, but they were the first to get the category truly right. This being said, I have no idea what Apple will get right about cars that others have not. But that’s the point, isn’t it. We never know ahead of time. There will just be a launch and then everything will change.
To the smug 2026 posters who link this thread to laugh at us: my prediction is Apple ships a clean, simplified no-frills electric car 2.0 _subscription_.
I’m in the hook for gas/charging, taking it to you for service or a swap at your request, and personal liability insurance. You’re on the hook for everything else. Standard month to month or yearly for a discount pricing.
It’s one of those situations where someone other than the driver owning the car makes the incentives line up nicely. Renters have the incentive and capital to get maximum reliability from manufacturers and competition plus scale drives prices to somewhere near depreciation plus mean maintenance which is the best you can really hope to do as a consumer looking to buy.
How much faster then 2-4 seconds to 100km/h do you need.
Better quality interiors? Better then Germans? Likely not.
I guess better software is an option, but what exactly. Tesla is working on that for years.
Self driving? Well, Apple has no solution and if anybody has one by 2024 is questionable.
Apple is likely not gone compete on price.
So not sure what the angle is here.
The problem there is nothing that is truly next generation. Better UX navigation doesn't help you find good music. How much more than 400-500 songs do you need on an mp3 player? How much faster will a navigation wheel help you find the music you like?
Better quality online music store? Better than Napster? Likely not.
I guess better software is an option, but what exactly. Creative Labs is working on that for years.
Internal 2GB flash drive? Well, Creative has no solution and if anybody has one by 2005 is questionable.
Apple is likely not gone compete on price.
So not sure what the angle is here.
As in, “yes it technically can place and receive calls but that is the most boring thing that it does.”
1. Big enough market for an investment of 10s of billions
2. Its international (quit a bit of that money is stuck overseas)
3. Making electric cars isn't too hard (see Tesla)
4. Its a consumer product and they have the best consumer brand which they can easily leverage.
5. The car market is poised to be radically disrupted in the short term - electric cars/self driving cars
I don't know, I think Tesla is a good example of how difficult it is to penetrate the car market as a new company. It took them nearly 20 years to get where they are today, and it's not like that was 20 years of smooth sailing. From what I've read they came close to going under multiple times. Aren't they the first major new US car company to start up and not go under since the early 20th century?
The situation for Apple is certainly different, given their size and the massive leaps in terms of EV tech compared to when Tesla started out, but let's not trivialise the complexity of the task and the inherent financial expenditure and risk.
The auto industry has historically been a low margin, low volume, high capital investment industry with significant government subsidies.
Buying 40% of Tesla would have been a drop in the bucket for Apple, and it would have already payed off big time.
The article also suggests that Apple would have a "manufacturing partner". After all, iPhones are made by Foxconn. So this may just be Apple selling BYD cars outside China. BYD sells more electric cars than anyone else, including Tesla, but has been having trouble getting into the US market. Apple can help with the marketing end.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Automobiles/Foxconn-aims-fo...
Tesla and others are already using LFP as well btw.
> So this may just be Apple selling BYD cars outside China.
In this case BYD would not just be a "manufacturing partner". Apple would simply be selling an OEM product.
Being successful at building another electric car would be certainly interesting.
Being successful at building a self-driving car would be one of the biggest achievement of the century.
Road/highway infrastructure would be a thing of the past. Billions (if not trillions) of dollars saved in new road construction and maintenance. Can divert federal/state/local funds to education, public health, and social programs.
Then highways can be replaced by housing infrastructure and thus slowly driving down the cost of housing in markets across the country.
Also, Apple can't even convert my voicemails into text. They seem like 3-5 generations behind the competition in machine learning. People believe they'll have a self driving car in a little over three years? Mmmmmmkay.
Well, EVgo claims to be the largest DC fast charging network in the US. I don't know if that's true, and I don't know if they're excluding Tesla's proprietary network. They claim to have 800 fast charging locations, and I think Tesla is a bit over 900. Tesla has more stations per location, however, I'm pretty certain of that.
Collectively, I think there are more non-Tesla DC fast charging locations than there are superchargers, and the gap is expected to widen significantly over the coming years. Tesla had a great head start, though, so they command the mindshare. And some of the standardized DC fast charging stations have acquired a reputation for unreliability. But ... superchargers break regularly, too.
It wouldn't surprise me if Apple didn't get into a few other markets that Elon is targeting as well, though Apple's careful to not launch too many products at once - it may put them at a disadvantage over decades; of course they can always buy companies in a market they want to be in.
Based on their consumer electronics past, Apple would probably nail the design and get the hardware mostly right. For self driving I think Apple's best bet here to me seems like licensing Waymo tech. Waymo seems to have the lead amongst all and Apple would be more interested in the complete product unlike Waymo which seems to be just interested in the driving tech.
Well, the linked article mentioned Apple's rumored project is being led by Doug Fields, who was Tesla's senior VP of engineering. There are probably others.
Of course, poaching engineers in such a hotly competitive industry seems like could lead to a lot of accusations of trade secret theft. It's sure a good thing Tesla and Apple aren't both famously litigious...
I know people who interviewed for a position there (2018), and it is so covert, that you couldn't guess it was an Apple building until you are literally in the interview room. The building, reception and address had zero indication that it might be Apple.
I live in their area and haven't seen any Apple cars for years, just Lexus' with a ton of sensors plastered on top, which is their self driving team (part of their SPG division).
Now Apple has bitten the ...? I expect MS to follow suit soon.
https://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/joke/crash.htm
> For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
> Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive – but would run on only five percent of the roads.
> Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
And let us not forget that this one came true. (My Mazda, for example.)
> You’d have to press the “Start” button to turn the engine off.
https://www.google.com/search?q=microsoft+self+driving+car&o...
Apple will likely build an AR-centric user experience using the windshield and new control paradigms. There's a huge area for creativity here and I don't doubt Apple can come up with something that will make a big touch screen seem archaic. If they can make the driver optional, there's even more room to think different.
Battery life: changes depending on if we have a new model
Color: Rose gold or black
In comparison Tesla S carries huge amount of dead weight in 18650 casings, redundant conductors, electrodes, and battery module casings.
BYD Han has very big cells, and single simple module body, and actually beats Tesla on whole battery energy density.
Try to do it with cobalt base cathodes, they will shred themselves with internal expansion after a few charge cycles.
Tesla's lead is large enough that the established auto companies still (as far as I've seen) don't have compelling strategies for closing the gap.
As a technology company, Apple comes at the issue from a different perspective, and arguably, one with much more overlap to Musk, et al.
Batteries are notoriously difficult to innovate. We've seen story after story for more than an decade about breakthrough battery tech that doesn't or hasn't materialized, but the lead that Tesla has built has been by making a series of more-or-less incremental improvements to their design, coupled with the pricing benefits that come with the highest volume.
Do you believe that Apple has a battery technology that Tesla either is not aware of, or, is working on but not succeeded yet, or, has taken a look at and dismissed?
As others have pointed out (and some disagreed with), Apple has capital, supply-chain expertise, patience, and a dogmatic focus on the whole experience. In a realm where technology is increasingly a driver of the experience (no pun intended), cars start to make some sense.
But the battery claim... I just can't imagine a universe where Tesla isn't aware of the same hard-science. I'd love to be surprised though.
I'd say there's a slim possibility.
But clearly it's a tough nut to crack because there hasn't really been much progress despite the necessity/urgency.
Also I wonder if your car will look so beautiful, be so shiny, that you buy a case for it... will it come in peel off plastic (actually most cars already had this on their bonnets at least when shipping...).
Will it be machined out of a single block of aluminium?
(More clichés welcome)
iCar2 FAQs
In what colors are the iCar available? Space gray, silver, and gold
What kind of performance can I expect from my iCar? The iCar version 2 performs up to 30% faster than the original iCar and uses 25% less fuel.
Where can I refuel my iCar? iCar can be refueled at any station that has Universal Pump Type C connectors.
How do I select station presets on my radio? There is no need. iCar's built in stereo system automatically selects radio stations based on your facial expressions when you enter the car.
Does iCar need an air filter for the engine? No. iCar does not have problems with dirty air like conventional cars do. The iCar's engine cannot get dirty.
How can I open the hood of the iCar to service the fluids or engine components? The iCar is unibody and therefore the engine compartment cannot be accessed by the user. Send it to an authorized Apple service center for maintenance.
How do I put luggage into the trunk? The trunk is a slot loading mechanism. Simply hold the luggage near the trunk and it will automatically be pulled in. Keep in mind that the slot loader only accepts standard size suitcases. Dufflebags or briefcases may jam the mechanism.
How can I change to wiper blades on the iCar? The iCar contains no user serviceable parts. Please send it to an Apple authorized service center for all maintenance.
What kind of third-party accessories are available for the iCar? Accessories also known as Accs are available at the iCar Acc store. Only Acc which have been approved by Apple to be suitable for all ages are available at the Acc Store.
I am accustomed to driving a conventional car. How do I execute a right turn with the iCar? Easy. To make a right turn with your iCar simply press the Cruise control button (CRS) on your steering wheel while turning the wheel to the left.
Wait a minute! There is only one pedal in the iCar? Is it the brake or the accelerator? And how do I get the functionality of the other? The single pedal in your iCar is a multipurpose pedal. Press on it with one foot for gas, and step on it with two feet for brakes.
edit: Standard Oil was the company I was thinking about but the structure of it will be more like General Electric
Newborn Californians won't ever be able to purchase an ICE car, because they'll be banned entirely in 2035.
Also Apple isn't known for being a machine learning company, I'm sure the car will be very pretty but they're kidding themselves if they think they are making a self driving system that to sell. MobilEye already has that covered quite well.
Remember the first versions of Apple Maps compared to the (relative) incumbent's? It felt incredibly half-baked and received user/media feedback accordingly.
I can already see this happening with cars with the same response - "Well... building a [map/car/ml system] is hard..."
When companies with the resources of a FAANG enter industries like that, they're able to make it price competitive quickly.
For example, what Netflix did to the cable industry.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Come join us in reality when you're ready, man.
Future is electric, but we have to be environmentally conscious: how about a global program for engine replacements? Some folks already are doing this with classic cars. I see in transition to electric cars lots of data hoarding problems, actually if this companies will use my driving data for training of their algos I must receive compensation as data miner:)
I work in medical device manufacturing, and it's not even close. The auto industry has regulations, yes, but it's not nearly as regulated many other industries in the United States.
That said, regulations are walls that keep out cash-poor newcomers.
There's a good chance Apple will fail at this thing, but it won't be because of the regulations.
Let's look on UK only plan for this, If they to replace all currently used cars with electric ones (assuming they use the most resource-frugal next-generation batteries), it would take the following:
- 207,900 tonnes of cobalt - just under twice the annual global production - 264,600 tonnes of lithium carbonate (LCE) - three quarters the world's production - at least 7,200 tonnes of neodymium and dysprosium - nearly the entire world production of neodymium - 2,362,500 tonnes of copper - more than half the world's production in 2018
source: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2019/june/we-need-more-m...
And this is just UK.
Every manufacturer offers models in categories from large pickup truck to family roadtripper to mid-size crossovers, each model with trims that could vary the performance and aesthetics and targeted price points that could raise the final price by tens of thousands.
The Internet is filled with car forums, not including Reddit or Facebook groups, jam-packed with users. Forums for individual models, like one for each of the Subaru Forester, Outback, Crosstrek, and Ascent. Forums for auto-detailing, rally racing, off-roading, and countless other activities.
Car financing and used-car sales provide further flexibility for people to buy their cars. The size of the auto financing industry in the U.S. is in the ballpark of ~$1.2 trillion.
YouTube has probably millions of hours of car videos — any random model from any random manufacturer has review videos from countless owners, each one with tens of thousands to millions of views, and these are refreshed every year. There are reviews for different tires, engine mods, accessories, trims, 6-months of use, 12-months of use, snow usage, and off-roading usage.
The automobile, at least, is one of the indisputable triumphs of capitalism and the modern global economy, a testament to its ability to serve every customer at every price point and nearly every use-case. Yes, there are environmental impacts of car usage, and quality of life externalities due to traffic and roads, but, for this post at least, I want to appreciate the automobile and how significant it is to our lives.
There's plenty of room for Apple, and car owners and renters across the world, I'm sure, will benefit from its entrance, whatever way, shape, or form it takes.
Don't compete with Tesla on sportscars. Be the new minivan.
I do wonder if Apple building a car would generate some sort of similar epiphany, related to batteries or not.
But I also think that the electric car space is already very simple. Apple would be going head-to-head with Tesla which has already stripped away almost everything into a large dash-mounted monitor.
I think there’s space for innovation there. The new Citroen Ami, for example, is a bolder design (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_Ami_(electric) ), but I think one can do better.
Not to mention when it comes to self driving technology Apple probably lags Waymo by a number of years.
There are MANY car manufacturers. Do we need another?
There are only TWO mainstream desktop operating systems/platforms. We could use another, but the barrier is now too high.
If the company has that much profits that they can dabble in the automotive industry, then maybe they didn’t need to use every tax minimization, supply chain efficiency, and globalized slave-labor manufacturing option at their disposal.
Ppl: Why can’t you invest in manufacturing stuff inside the us? Other ppl: “You want your iPhone to cost 5-gajillion dollars?”
This seems wholly unhealthy, maybe big tech is due to be broken up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_Multipla#/media/File:Fiat...
That being said Tesla is no slouch. It’s led by a maverick founder - someone who has shot astronauts to ISS, built electric cars and drilled big holes into the earth. Ironically he seems to be taking the position of Steve Jobs
It will be a mistake to discount either. If anything it’s two likely outcomes are:
- America will maintain leadership in innovation
- Consumers will benefit
Does Apple have enough money (cash, line of credit capability) to simply buy an automaker? I can see where it would make the most sense to partner but having an option to buy at a later point could bring advantages to Apple.
I would say so.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/29/apple-q4-cash-hoard-heres-ho...
I think the answer is Yes regardless of the industry (or small country).
Buying a manufacturer would bring all of that in-house.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_International
Just like they don't own companies that assemble iPhones, they don't need to own car assembly. They can dictate and control the quality without owning factories. Most parts are outsourced anyway.
If they rely on a third party for the manufacturing there are no reasons this would take that long. We have seen recently how quickly this can happen with the M1 chip.
With the Apple community already treating their products as gold, Tesla cars will no longer be perceived as the premium product in the long run.
Die hard apple fans will love it no matter what and no matter what they sell and at what price, they'll buy it.
I think Apple will outsource it, although the article did say talks with Magna fell through.
Dyson seems like it has the know how to do production in-house, but their car project failed.
Samsung is in that game now since they purchased harman kardon
How can Apple bring a unique enough experience to the car to get the margins they command on their other products? Perhaps they wouldn't get the 30% plus margins they get elsewhere, but I can't see Apple spending so much effort to get the slim 5-10% margins you see other automakers getting.
Apple can’t even make a simple stupid phone that doesn’t break.
They can’t even make a simple stupid cable that’s functional, and can last 10,000s of usage, and is not just for show.
And plus, they’ll sell you the car, and make you buy the cable, and claim they’re doing it for environmental reasons.
They’re going to have a reality check when it comes to cars.
Another aspect I think Apple will struggle with (if they really pursue a full blown car) is the very same reason it succeeds: brand affinity.
It was easy to ditch BlackBerry when the iPhone came out because the cost of buying a first gen product wasn't so high.
I love BMW and don't see any current or nascent tech changing that. I'd love for them to compete, really compete(!!) with Tesla et al. because EVs and all they represent is exciting but I'm not so hot on Tesla. Great brand and product but kinda feel I'm not their primary demographic: tech bros who wear Allbirds and live in Silicon Valley.
German carmakers have a rich history that speaks for itself when you see the badge on the bonnet. Can't say the same about Tesla, let alone Apple.
Say what you will but Nazi Sled > Tesla any day. At least for me.
The reality distortion Apple has pulled on its most euphoric apologists is insane.
Basically, they will build software, the steering wheel, the whole from dash, maybe even a backseat interface, and internal software (excluding hardware drivers), and standardize the UX across every automaker.
Kinda like what Android did for phones, but Apple will enforce stricter regulations for carOS.
They are the opposite of Microsoft which is a software company that makes hardware to showcase their software.
I can’t even run the later safari on a non apple product.