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Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

uk.reuters.com

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Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#191

Post by adamlett »

boznz wrote: post #161
salimmadjd wrote: post #8

Of all the SV tech giants (obviously Tesla excluded), Apple has the best DNA to build cars. They know how manufacture in scale. They know how build a vertical product. They have the cash to do it and they have a strong brand. But most importantly, if the world moves to a car-sharing car-hailing model of autonomous cars. Ultimately, it becomes a consumer mobile play. This is where both Google and Apple own that experi…

If I was Apple I would just buy Tesla. Problem solved.

That's a ridiculous statement when you don't qualify it with the price at which you would(n't) buy. I am sure Apple would love to own Tesla too, but Tesla shares a very expensive compared to other car companies'. And if Apple were to attempt a hostile takeover, they would have to pay even more. And what exactly would Apple get? Tesla has a fantastic brand, but so does Apple themselves. Tesla has some ability to mass produce cars, but nothing compared to most other car companies. Apple could buy Ford and get much, much better value for its money. The only assets Tesla has that would be of unique value to Apple, are it's employees and maybe some of the tech related to self driving cars.

Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#192

Post by notliketherest »

ianamartin wrote: post #99
gregschlom wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may result in the opposite effect though: pedestrians more willing to cross the street in front of you, and other cars trying to mess with you. (A friend of mine was telling me how he tried going really fast then braking hard behind a self driving car in front of him). The car swerved into the bike lane and almost hit a bicyclist before the driver regained manual control of the car)

I don't know what it's like in the bay area, but in NYC, everyone is an enemy to cyclists. Granted, it's not all our fault. We have our fair share of wannabe lance armstrongs. But most of us are just trying to get to/from work in a healthy way. People who drive hate us, and people who walk hate us too. It's a shitty situation here.

It's the same everywhere. I bike to work and hate people in cars. I drive around and hate bicyclists just as much.

Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#193

Post by charlesism »

jedberg wrote: post #172
charlesism wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your reasoning is excellent. The only problem is that Apple doesn't have sufficient drive, talent, or reputation, in the auto industry to actually make and sell a good car. No employee wants to leave Tesla to work at Apple. No consumer wants to buy a car made by Apple. Hopefully Tim and the gang won't blow through too much money before they accept that. They're pretty good at making phones and computers. They might w…

Your reasoning is excellent. The only problem is that Apple doesn't have sufficient drive, talent, or reputation, in the cell phone industry to actually make and sell a good cell phone. No employee wants to leave Motorola to work at Apple. No consumer wants to buy a phone made by Apple. Hopefully Steve and the gang won't blow through too much money before they accept that. They're pretty good at making computers. The…

    > Your reasoning is excellent.
Fwiw, I meant that sincerely. I just doubt Apple can pull it off.

Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#195

Post by dzhiurgis »

agumonkey wrote: post #173
charlesism wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your reasoning is excellent. The only problem is that Apple doesn't have sufficient drive, talent, or reputation, in the auto industry to actually make and sell a good car. No employee wants to leave Tesla to work at Apple. No consumer wants to buy a car made by Apple. Hopefully Tim and the gang won't blow through too much money before they accept that. They're pretty good at making phones and computers. They might w…

I'd be worried about the youngs though. 10$ they don't see cars the same way previous generations did. They grew up with smartphones and internet. They may be very curious about feeling the Apple feel with a vehicle.

Very true! A16Z recently had an episode where they said millennials prefer nicely integrated infotainment over horsepower or looks.

Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#196

Post by usrusr »

ams6110 wrote: post #129
gregpilling wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, also why would it need oil changes since it would most likely be electric? Scheduled maintenance is a very occasional thing in electric vehicles.

Electric is a much smaller market. And nothing about self-driving requires an electric vehicle. I'd consider buying self-driving features on a regular car. Electric would be a total deal-breaker for me with today's technology. Edit: upon further reflection I think it's likely that Apple is just developing the self driving tech and is unlikely to be actually planning to build cars, electric or otherwise.

That last paragraph. The Android model would be very attractive for cars, even for Apple. On smartphones, that model suffers from the hardware being all too indistinguishable. Glass rectangles with or without rounded corners, maybe a button here and there. Car manufacturers by contrast have a century of experience with making mechanical differences count, on top of the same UI everywhere.

For Apple and Google, the case is clear: if they want to defend their incredibly valuable gatekeeper position for local search (the market formerly known as the yellow pages) they need to provide the UI for the car or else they lose much of that gatekeeping. The question is, will any car manufacturers be willing to play, or are they all trying to succeed where Nokia failed?

Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#197

Post by Godel_unicode »

hueving wrote: post #179
old-gregg wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hold on, how do you let 80% of people to control Chromecast? If anything's it's not controllable by anyone by default because nobody happens to lug around a laptop with a pre-installed chrome extension. I haven't used Android for a while, but on my last Nexus phone Chromecast wasn't useful for anything other than Youtube.

>I haven't used Android for a while Maybe you should have considered that before engaging in a conversation about devices tightly integrated with Android.

Fwiw, all the major apps which have Chromecast support on Android also have it on iOS as well.

Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#198

Post by tim333 »

legolas2412 wrote: post #135
chrismealy wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problem is totally technical! Robot cars can barely deal with following white lines on the road. How about rain, construction, poorly marked roads, fallen trees, badly parked delivery trucks, emergency vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, etc? Can cars read roads signs and understand them? We'll have full-on AI before self-driving cars are for real.

I've been parroting this on every self driving thread. I finally found one person who agrees with my thinking that driving is as hard as general AI. Why is this idea so opposed by everyone?

Because we have self driving elevators, self driving trains (the DLR), driverless busses (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/03/worlds-first-driv...)

and shortly self driving Volvos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q00jIBhkq4

None of those have human level AI. There's a lot you can do in the real world without that.

It's interesting that Volvo seems, rather than out AIing their competitors to have gone to town on the sensors with several radars, cameras and lidar.

Re: Apple receives permit in California to test self-driving cars

#200

Post by adamlett »

jcfrei wrote: post #111
CharlesW wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I doubt Apple will ever launch its own car. It's a large consumer market that's changing rapidly and ripe for disruption. Why would you doubt that Apple will enter it?

Because manufacturing your own car in large quantities is very difficult. Tesla is a good example on how difficult it is to scale up production numbers. And even though the market / products themselves are changing rapidly the required expertise for a mass production of cars remains the same. I think an acquisition would be slightly more realistic. But has Apple ever acquired an entire product line? I don't think tha…

I agree with your conclusion, but I think your analysis is dead wrong. I don't think Apple would have problems manufacturing cars at scale. They have virtually unlimited money to aquire people with the know how, and to invest in factories. And they have lots of experience with manufacturing already. Sure, cars are different from consumer electronics, but not in any insurmountable way.

The real reason I think Apple would pull the plug on it's car project, is if they believe we are about to move to a transportation as a service world. Ride sharing and self driving cars are trends that point in that direction. Apple is a (consumer) product company. Their internal structure is set up to make the best consumer products and sell them directly to consumers. They are not set up to be a services company. Being a (successful) services company is to some extent antithetical to being a successful product company. Apple knows this.

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