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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

#231

Post by georgespencer »

charlesism wrote: post #163
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #39

In some markets, it is more about getting it right than getting in at the right time. We've seen many carcasses of products that were ahead of their time, not because they were bad ideas but because they were not formulated for mass adoption. Apple's own Newton is one example. It took the iPhone formulation to make the product features successful in the market. A more recent example is the telepresence robot. Many en…

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…

List of people who have been or are working on Project Titan:

Jamie Carlson (ex-Tesla autopilot)

Megan McClain (ex-Volkswagen)

Vinay Palakkode (Carnegie Mellon automated driving)

Xianqiao Tong (computer vision at Nvidia)

Paul Furgale (Autonomous systems lab at SFIT)

Sanjay Massey (automated vehicles, Ford)

Stefan Weber (Bosch video based driver assistance)

Lech Szumilas (Delphi computer vision researcher)

Doug Betts (global quality lead at Fiat)

Johann Jungwirth (head of R&D at Mercedes)

Mujeeb Ijaz (Ford electrical battery cell specialist)

Nancy Sun (VP electrical engineering at electric motorcycle company Mission Motors)

Mark Sherwood (VP powertrain systems engineering at Mission Motors)

Eyal Cohen (VP software Mission Motors)

Jonathan Cohen (director of Nvidia's deep learning group)

Chris Porritt (Tesla VP of vehicle engineering and chief engineer at Aston Martin)

Alex Hitzinger (Technical Director of Porsche LMP1)

Cool.

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

#232

Post by briandear »

charlesism wrote: post #163
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #39

In some markets, it is more about getting it right than getting in at the right time. We've seen many carcasses of products that were ahead of their time, not because they were bad ideas but because they were not formulated for mass adoption. Apple's own Newton is one example. It took the iPhone formulation to make the product features successful in the market. A more recent example is the telepresence robot. Many en…

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…

> No Consumer wants to buy a car made by Apple.

[citation needed]

No consumer wanted to buy a phone from Apple either. Until they made one.

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

#233

Post by the_duke »

georgespencer wrote: post #229
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #39

In some markets, it is more about getting it right than getting in at the right time. We've seen many carcasses of products that were ahead of their time, not because they were bad ideas but because they were not formulated for mass adoption. Apple's own Newton is one example. It took the iPhone formulation to make the product features successful in the market. A more recent example is the telepresence robot. Many en…

> Apple TV Profitable and doing billions of dollars of revenue a quarter. Losers?

Source?

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

#234

Post by briandear »

fgonzag wrote: post #177
jedberg wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I mean from a computer to a mp3 player to a phone is the same ballpark. Electronics. Moving to mechanical systems is a whole different thing. I'm not saying it won't work out, but I don't think their plan is manufacturing cars. Maybe it's just licensing the self driving tech along with the infotainment system.

Yet somehow Elon Musk went from internet payments to building rockets and cars. Musk had zero background in rockets or cars. Remember Apple is a company that has more cash in the bank than the entire value of Tesla. It's foolish to think that Apple can't execute. Remember Apple has a long history of the last mover advantage: they take promising but cumbersomely executed tech and expand on it.

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

#235

Post by tim333 »

m4x wrote: post #220
tim333 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Elevators and trains are not even in the same ballpark as cars, and the busses you linked to can't function on public roads. They don't have the ability to interact with other vehicles. It's entirely valid to state that we can do lots with our current tech, because we can, but when the topic is self driving cars on public roads, it makes no sense to claim they're possible without general AI based on the fact that an…

The Volvos drive themselves on public roads. OK level 4 not 5 and not quite launched on the public yet but not bad.

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

#236

Post by briandear »

charlesism wrote: post #189
jedberg wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My impression is that building a car involves a fairly different set of skills (ie: pretty much everything except the dashboard) than Apple has. The thought of bringing in 95% new-hires to work on a project in which your company has no experience... I mean, why? If the primary motivation is money, without sufficient passion, good luck competing with Tesla - where they live and breath electric cars.

What were Tesla people doing before they made cars? We could have made this argument comparing Tesla to GM a few years ago.

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

#237

Post by visarga »

millstone wrote: post #158
driverdan wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iTunes itself is a bad Apple product. Ping was just one bad part.

It's worth pointing out that the iTunes Music Store was revolutionary for its time. It was the first online music store that was legal, easy to use, and sold popular songs.

The store, yes, the app, no.

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

#238

Post by agumonkey »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #195
agumonkey wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And probably don't want to bother with dealers and such.

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

#239

Post by bigtimeidiot »

adamlett wrote: post #200
jcfrei wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wo…

>Sure, cars are different from consumer electronics, but not in any insurmountable way.

Perhaps not "insurmountable"...

...but you realize that what Apple currently manufactures is equivalent to one single, near-insignificant component of what goes into a car: the on-board navigation system.

Building a car is hard. I don't think Apple can't do it, but I'm convinced they won't find it "worth it".

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

#240

Post by bigtimeidiot »

CharlesW wrote: post #71
gajeam wrote: post #65

I guess you never know with Apple but it just seems like a really crowded space for them to come into, especially if they insist on controlling the whole ecosystem like they do with their other products. First of all, it's a high price tag for them to get top talent in the area. Waymo, Uber, Tesla, Ford (and a dozen other car companies), and who knows how many start ups are all vying for the same pool of engineers. E…

> I guess you never know with Apple but it just seems like a really crowded space for them to come into… The iPhone entered a crowded phone market and now controls the vast majority of smartphone profits. There's really no such thing as market "saturation" when you can grow the market and eat old participants. > First of all, it's a high price tag for them to get top talent in the area. Apple has $250 billion in cash…

>Apple has $250 billion in cash, so this doesn't strike me as a huge concern.

It's not their money, it's the shareholders. It might be tough to make a case to them to jump into this market.

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