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Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

nytimes.com

21–30 of 434 posts

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#21

This is the right way. Building a mass market car is an enormous exercise. We have seen this with Tesla, which has thrown money at the problem and will still take 4 years to become mass market (2.5 already over + another 1.5 years). After these 4 years, its unclear what the value add will be.

Tesla has built a category from the ground up. That is a very different challenge from replicating an existing business that has gone through decades of refinement.

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#22
post #3

"But people within the industrial design team including Jonathan Ive, Apple’s chief designer, believed that a fully driverless car would allow the company to reimagine the automobile experience, according to the five people." Ah Jony Ive, first he ruined iOS 7 and now this constant need to tinker with things that work fine. I love the hardware design but please leave the software and HID bit alone... of course YMMV P…

Yes, old design icons made more sense, new flat ones are too abstract

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#24
post #5

Why does the tech industry focus on self-driving cars so much? It's absolutely never going to happen, ever. The world would be much better off if we converted our roads to a rail/streetcar system and drop the personal car concept entirely. The hype around this is worse than VR.

> Why does the tech industry focus on self-driving cars so much? It's absolutely never going to happen, ever. It's already happened.

For the "happy path" case, in good weather, etc., sure. But that's the first 90%. The second 90%, dealing with all weather conditions, all traffic conditions, arbitrary road hazards, crazy road conditions, etc., might take a lot longer. To the point that it's not crazy to say "it'll never happen".

That said, I do think we'll get there eventually, as I think we'll get to AGI (or even ASI) eventually. But I can't prove that either. And I can understand a certain measure of skepticism about the whole thing.

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#25
post #14

A moral of this story is "don't name things 'Titan' or titan-related names". It's asking for trouble - Blizzard's 'Project Titan', Titan A.E., the Titanic. Things didn't end all that well for the titans in Greek mythology either.

Nice point, but I guess so far the chemical element titanium is doing all right.

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#26
post #3

"But people within the industrial design team including Jonathan Ive, Apple’s chief designer, believed that a fully driverless car would allow the company to reimagine the automobile experience, according to the five people." Ah Jony Ive, first he ruined iOS 7 and now this constant need to tinker with things that work fine. I love the hardware design but please leave the software and HID bit alone... of course YMMV P…

I think iOS usability has become and is increasingly becoming, more complicated and less easy to use. But this doesn't have anything to do with the flat design, but with the many features, buttons, and gestures being added every new release.

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#27
post #14

A moral of this story is "don't name things 'Titan' or titan-related names". It's asking for trouble - Blizzard's 'Project Titan', Titan A.E., the Titanic. Things didn't end all that well for the titans in Greek mythology either.

To the extent Project Titan served as the seed of Overwatch it was probably profitable (maybe even when you take into account opportunity cost).

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#28

If Apple were truly serious about building self-driving cars, they would buy one of the big 3 US auto manufacturers. It could buy all 3 with cash and still have one of the largest hoards of cash ever accumulated.

The culture and support issues that would incur seem non-trivial.

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#29
post #5

Why does the tech industry focus on self-driving cars so much? It's absolutely never going to happen, ever. The world would be much better off if we converted our roads to a rail/streetcar system and drop the personal car concept entirely. The hype around this is worse than VR.

Is it that you don't want self driving cars to happen or you don't THINK it will happen? I, for one, am super excited for self driving personal vehicles and will be glad to see the eradication of mass public transportation like trains and buses.

My belief is that it just won't happen without infrastructure changes, such as new road designs and car-to-car communications regulations.

And I don't see those changes happening without an infrastructure overhaul, at which point you might as well create a streetcar infrastructure.

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#30

If Apple were truly serious about building self-driving cars, they would buy one of the big 3 US auto manufacturers. It could buy all 3 with cash and still have one of the largest hoards of cash ever accumulated.

They wouldn't get the tech they're looking for.

Manufacturing scale is not something they need until after they have the self driving tech (and also, I'd just partner with a Japanese or German automaker tbh. Toyota under the current CEO has made moves that hint that it would be open to a joint venture).

The main differentiator of current big auto is the engine and drivetrain engineering, which you can circumvent when going electric.

It's unclear what you're buying with a big 3 company that actually helps with the self driving part of the problem, which is currently a much larger problem than manufacturing scale and quality assurance.

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