Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple Car Challenges: Sobering Thoughts

mondaynote.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 83 posts

Re: Apple Car Challenges: Sobering Thoughts

#61

Post by rstupek »

buro9 wrote: post #56
nacs wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people living in a flat with no garage own a > $70-100K car? It seems to me like people who're buying a car in that price range would either own a house or at least have access to a garage.

That sounds like a very US view. It's fairly common in London to not have a garage, and even if you do then there is unlikely to be any power there. Most likely is on-street parking, and that's assuming you're not in a flat.

So it sounds like an all electric vehicle may simply not be for them.

Re: Apple Car Challenges: Sobering Thoughts

#62

Post by FredFredrickson »

wmeredith wrote: post #20
FreedomToCreate wrote: post #6

Apple is a consumer electronics company. They build focused hardware with software that they patch over time. Cars don't work like that. Cars are like building 100 products into one thing. Fine tuning every aspect of there design is incredibly difficult and is reflected in cost. A software for cars is completely different. For Apple to completely commit to cars, the dynamic within its culture will have to radically c…

Didn't the president of Nokia make a similar argument about computer companies entering the smartphone market? I'm not saying a car and a phone are the same, but it's a parallel to keep in mind when framing these arguments in your head. EDIT: Found what I was thinking of. It was Ed Colligan, Ex-Palm CEO on 16 Nov 2006. >>We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys…

How many companies has that been true for, though? Apple is the only PC company who made it big as a phone manufacturer. It's a single point on the graph.

Re: Apple Car Challenges: Sobering Thoughts

#63

Post by ZeroGravitas »

rhino369 wrote: post #43
kozak wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The so-called "BMW i3 with Range Extender" is a "more true" range-extended battery electric vehicle. Unlike the Volt, the BMW doesn't have any mechanic connection between its wheels and the gasoline engine, and the gasoline engine is properly underpowered not to be considered a primary source of propulsion.

I don't understand why everyone is so outraged that the volt can have a mechanical connection with the gas engine. It's more efficient in some circumstances that just charging a generator. It still can (and does) go in all electric mode, even up to 100 mph. The BWI w/ range extender still only goes 150 miles between gas ups. That's pretty annoying. It's great for days when you just need a bit extra to get through. Bu…

I'm not "outraged" but I do think that the Volt design is a temporary anomaly, mostly due to path dependence and being built by a corporation that traditionally built ICE vehicles.

A small battery EV with a ICE range extender is simply a better sweet spot and takes better advantage of both mode's unique features and avoids a whole bunch of mechanical parts running through the car.

Also worth noting that the i3 gas tank was electronically limited in capacity (along with other tweaks) to meet California regulations for getting a rebate.

Re: Apple Car Challenges: Sobering Thoughts

#64

Post by NDizzle »

kozak wrote: post #7
phkahler wrote: post #5

I hate the term "range anxiety". The industry used to throw it around all the time. That term shifts the blame from the product to the customer. The issue is that a vehicle with a range under 100 miles is not that useful. I could drive a car like that to work most days, but I could not make a significant deviation - to go to another work facility, customer or supplier site, or even to see a friend for dinner after wo…

I live in a climate where you can potentially get stuck in the snow for few hours when going between cities (that happens maybe once per year, but today is exactly such a day, for example). In a gasoline car you would at least stay warm while waiting for the road to be unblocked. With an electric car, this might easily turn into a survival situation.

Yeah, it's going to be some time until I'm comfortable with batteries-only in cold weather. See here: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/02/winter-chill...

Re: Apple Car Challenges: Sobering Thoughts

#65

Post by CPLX »

nacs wrote: post #52
gutnor wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another point to that, is that the default assumption, even for a Tesla is that you can charge it at home during the night. For people living in a flat with car on the street, that means going to a charging station on a regular basis for a full charge. That is beyond anxiety, it means planning your life around your car range, instead of the other way around. And with the current availability of charging stations, it…

How many people living in a flat with no garage own a > $70-100K car? It seems to me like people who're buying a car in that price range would either own a house or at least have access to a garage.

I live in Brooklyn. There are quite a few of us here.

I do see a few of them around here and there but it's a logistic nightmare to even consider a power-cable-charged electric car in a city like this.

Re: Apple Car Challenges: Sobering Thoughts

#66

Post by falcolas »

dangrossman wrote: post #57
falcolas wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is, if you still have 80 miles to go in weather which got you stuck in the first place. I live in Montana, so such trips are common, not exceptional. Having a pass close in front of you (or while you're on it) is not terribly exceptional either.

Is it? Then you definitely wouldn't want to make this trip in a traditional gasoline car. Two drivers leave on this trip you described with the same fuel in the tank (250 miles worth), one in a Tesla and one in a Toyota. Both travel 100 miles before getting stuck. Both have to wait 8 hours in the cold on a closed road. Both have 80 miles to go. The difference is, the Tesla has 112 miles of range left at that point, a…

Refueling a gas powered vehicle at a small town is much simpler than looking for a supercharger or spending the night waiting for a normal outlet to recharge your battery.

Small towns (which for Montana I'll define as towns with a population of around 1,000) with gas pumps are plentiful. Small towns with hotels, a bit less plentiful. Small towns with superchargers are nonexistent.

> You wouldn't have left if your destination wasn't within 80 miles of I90 or I15,

Bozeman to Great Falls, 180 miles. A supercharger on one end of the trip, a hotel on the far end, and lots of nasty winter driving in-between. Also known as Tuesday for many folks I know.

Limiting yourself to 100 miles from a Supercharger knocks out a lot of space in Montana. Most of the interesting parts of Montana are well over 10 miles from a supercharger. Yellowstone, Glacier National Park, the reservations, the feed lines into southern Idaho, Wyoming and North Dakota... No southern Idaho.

There's a joke that says that on the east coast, 100 miles is a vacation, but in Montana, 100 miles is a grocery trip. That applies to a lot of the non-coastal US as well. Have a look at https://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger?redirect=no, and look at how many huge open spaces exist.

Re: Apple Car Challenges: Sobering Thoughts

#67

Post by saosebastiao »

primrosepath wrote: post #50
saosebastiao wrote: post #34

Starting from scratch is such a monumental feat. Why wouldn't Apple just use it's cash reserves and buy out an existing car maker? They could literally buy pretty much any automaker they want, why not start with something like Fiat Chrysler, for a bargain basement price of $10B? I'm a supply chain guy. I work for a company with one of the top peer-rated supply chains in the world and Apple is still so far ahead of us…

Because the auto companies are far, far behind on software and, now in comparison to Tesla, hardware. I was told by a GM employee in their tech center in Warren, they have COBOL running in VMs on modern servers whose terminal screens get scraped into excel spread sheets. This is one of many examples I could give you. I could literally spend hours telling you the horror stories. It's government levels of inefficiencie…

> Because the auto companies are far, far behind on software and, now in comparison to Tesla, hardware.

It's a good thing that Apple is a software company.

> Apple, Google, Tesla and Uber will crush all but a few existing automakers, around the globe, and leadership has just now come around to acknowledging the threat. The regular Metro-Detroiter has no idea.

Of those four, only Tesla has actually produced cars that can be sold to the general public. Tesla is a 13 year old company. It has well known reliability problems, and it is supported by a luxury-only price point and market. It's market share is sub 1%.

That is exactly my point. Apple could, if they wanted, start from scratch and it will take 10 years absolute minimum before they are even remotely relevant. Or they could buy an existing car manufacturer with actual market share, and in the course of 2-3 years make it extremely profitable, and in 3-5 years make it into something Apple would be willing to put their logo on. Starting from scratch might be reasonable when you are talking software, but building an automotive company takes decades.

It doesn't even have to be Fiat Chrysler or domestic for that matter...any existing automaker with more than 20 years experience could be on the table when you have $200B in cash on hand. They could buy BMW for ~$50B or Daimler for ~$70B. Hell, they could buy Toyota at ~$175B.

Re: Apple Car Challenges: Sobering Thoughts

#68

Post by rhino369 »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #63
rhino369 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why everyone is so outraged that the volt can have a mechanical connection with the gas engine. It's more efficient in some circumstances that just charging a generator. It still can (and does) go in all electric mode, even up to 100 mph. The BWI w/ range extender still only goes 150 miles between gas ups. That's pretty annoying. It's great for days when you just need a bit extra to get through. Bu…

I'm not "outraged" but I do think that the Volt design is a temporary anomaly, mostly due to path dependence and being built by a corporation that traditionally built ICE vehicles. A small battery EV with a ICE range extender is simply a better sweet spot and takes better advantage of both mode's unique features and avoids a whole bunch of mechanical parts running through the car. Also worth noting that the i3 gas ta…

I didn't mean to suggest to were outraged. But the internet was for a while.

Re: Apple Car Challenges: Sobering Thoughts

#69

Post by cowsandmilk »

nacs wrote: post #52
gutnor wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another point to that, is that the default assumption, even for a Tesla is that you can charge it at home during the night. For people living in a flat with car on the street, that means going to a charging station on a regular basis for a full charge. That is beyond anxiety, it means planning your life around your car range, instead of the other way around. And with the current availability of charging stations, it…

How many people living in a flat with no garage own a > $70-100K car? It seems to me like people who're buying a car in that price range would either own a house or at least have access to a garage.

Go to Boston. Outdoor parking spaces have sold for 6 figures in some neighborhoods.

Also, my garage has plenty of cars in that price range (and far above), but there's no outlets for people to charge cars.

Re: Apple Car Challenges: Sobering Thoughts

#70

Post by majewsky »

samstave wrote: post #58
nacs wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people living in a flat with no garage own a > $70-100K car? It seems to me like people who're buying a car in that price range would either own a house or at least have access to a garage.

Bullshit, just go around any single place in san Francisco. Even just thinking of my brother in law and his wife both make $150k+ live in a condo in sf and even with their garage, they would not be able to install power at their parking spots.

There's a business opportunity for ridiculously long extension cords right there.
Post reply on HN