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Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

nytimes.com

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

#101

Post by jejdjdj02928 »

ctdonath wrote: post #39
mypalmike wrote: post #15

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.

Over the decades I've noticed how businesses need to recognize and focus on their core competencies - if they don't, they die. Everything must feed that core, and undue distractions are lethal. Occasionally there's a need to pivot , which is deliberately stepping from one competency to another, but that is rare and difficult. Apple's core is to build small computers; everything else they do (music, video, cloud servi…

Warren Buffet would like a word...

http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1989.html

Apple doesn't build small computers. They design consumer technology.

Someone else builds it.

They need to avoid institutional imperative by finding something other than small computers, which is facing stiff competition from emerging markets.

Before they just made laptops and desktops. Then handhelds. Now watches and tablets.

That's three non-trivial pivots from what someone in 1999 might call Apple's "core" business.

Sometimes something just seems too much and so you back down. But they necessarily have to keep looking.

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

#102

Post by Fricken »

valuearb wrote: post #43
mypalmike wrote: post #15

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.

Why would a high margin, high ROE, low capital requirements business like Apple invest in a low margin, poor ROE, high capital requirements business like a car maker? Besides being a poor investment that would lock up lots of their capital, it would also create a ton of management distractions. If they are serious about building self-driving cars, they are probably making a huge mistake. Cars have been a poor busines…

Everybody and their dog is trying to develop autonomous tech and license it. Autonomous capabilities used to be regarded as the secret sauce, and if you had it, the future of mobility was yours. This is not true. The ability to mass produce a vehicle is the secret sauce. It's the part that's hard to do.

But as far as low margins in the car industry goes, that point is irrelevant. Robotaxis are a different ballgame.

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

#103

Post by onewaystreet »

colechristensen wrote: post #68
tambourine_man wrote: post #36

“From the beginning, the employees dedicated to Project Titan looked at a wide range of details. That included motorized doors that opened and closed silently. They also studied ways to redesign a car interior without a steering wheel or gas pedals, and they worked on adding virtual or augmented reality into interior displays. The team also worked on a new light and ranging detection sensor, also known as lidar. Lida…

Seems like they were biting off way more than they could chew. If Apple partnered with an existing car company to apply their design principles on top of an existing car platform (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_Mini_platform ) they could see a lot of success if they weren't too ambitious. They wouldn't win if they tried to reinvent the wheel because there would be far too big of a chance of either taking 10…

> Build a car that was familiar built out with quality materials and an iOS dash interface and you'd sell like hotcakes.

That's basically what Tesla is doing with their Model 3.

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

#104

Post by stephengillie »

make3 wrote: post #66
tambourine_man wrote: post #36

“From the beginning, the employees dedicated to Project Titan looked at a wide range of details. That included motorized doors that opened and closed silently. They also studied ways to redesign a car interior without a steering wheel or gas pedals, and they worked on adding virtual or augmented reality into interior displays. The team also worked on a new light and ranging detection sensor, also known as lidar. Lida…

Very large tech companies always have people looking into weird slightly bullshit things. Doesn't necessarily mean that they had any real intention of committing to these ideas.

One example is Xerox's PARC.

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

#105

Post by amaranth »

c3534l wrote: post #72
ctdonath wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over the decades I've noticed how businesses need to recognize and focus on their core competencies - if they don't, they die. Everything must feed that core, and undue distractions are lethal. Occasionally there's a need to pivot , which is deliberately stepping from one competency to another, but that is rare and difficult. Apple's core is to build small computers; everything else they do (music, video, cloud servi…

Counter arguments: Walmart, Google and Amazon.

Google was a search engine that made money via ads then pivoted into an ad platform that also has a search engine. Android and Chrome are about ensuring they have a seat at the table and don't get pushed out by Apple or Microsoft. The first thing of significance they've done that doesn't fit this is their cloud platform.

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

#106

Post by uberuberuber »

briandear wrote: post #93
uberuberuber wrote: post #86

A vehicle with a similar external sensor array has been parked in a lot near my workplace every weekday at lunch time for the past several weeks. Given the proximity to AC3 at Central and Wolfe, my coworkers and I had all assumed it was an Apple test of some kind. Accords with the rumor mill surrounding Apple leasing a former Pepsi bottling plant down the street. https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2016/03/01/ap…

Was it a Lexus?

I believe so... however it is gold unlike most of the media pics showing a white Lexus.

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

#107

Post by freehunter »

moxious wrote: post #69
freehunter wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a day when I booted my computer, I'd have to run a few commands and enter a few keys and insert a diskette. If, at that point, you told me I'd one day have a computer that boots itself and starts programs by itself upon booting to the point where a reboot would be indistinguishable from merely turning the monitor on and off, I may have laughed at you. But here we are, in an era where when my Mac reboots I c…

Throughout all of that development, computers remained remarkably dumb. We still program them manually and they do what we tell them to even if it's disastrous. Driving on open roads with other humans is going to require elements of real intelligence that are qualitatively different than your OS example where they just did more programming, better, faster. It's apples and dump trucks. What if computers are just the w…

One thing that isn't getting better: humans ability to drive cars. Actually with computers getting smarter, we might even be getting worse at driving cars because we're spending more time on our computers when we should be driving.

Take a modern computer and show it to a programmer from 1970 and try to convince him that computers are still remarkably dumb. I doubt he'd agree. AI always falls into this trap. Once it's been done, it's not AI. It's just an algorithm. AI is something else. And when we do something that only humans could do just a few years ago, suddenly it's not AI anymore either. It's just an algorithm. AI is something else. And when we do that, now it's just an algorithm too. AI is something else.

I have a robot vacuuming my floors right now. I just typed "vacuuming" wrong and my computer corrected me without asking, it just did it. A minute ago I asked my phone, using my voice, to turn off my bedroom lights and it did. Seems pretty mundane, I know. So too will self-driving cars in time.

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

#108

Post by icpmacdo »

colechristensen wrote: post #68
tambourine_man wrote: post #36

“From the beginning, the employees dedicated to Project Titan looked at a wide range of details. That included motorized doors that opened and closed silently. They also studied ways to redesign a car interior without a steering wheel or gas pedals, and they worked on adding virtual or augmented reality into interior displays. The team also worked on a new light and ranging detection sensor, also known as lidar. Lida…

Seems like they were biting off way more than they could chew. If Apple partnered with an existing car company to apply their design principles on top of an existing car platform (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_Mini_platform ) they could see a lot of success if they weren't too ambitious. They wouldn't win if they tried to reinvent the wheel because there would be far too big of a chance of either taking 10…

With the percentage of this project being a drop in the bucket compared to the 260B war chest I have nothing but positive thoughts for Apple attempting ambitious projects. In the next ~10 years they could be a trillion dollar company if they figure out how to get iPhone like growth out of another industry.

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

#109

Post by mikebenfield »

jamestimmins wrote: post #20
slackoverflower wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's a strong case to be made that this isn't a desirable outcome in a lot of areas. Trains and buses are much more efficient at moving people than individual cars, even if they're self-driving. I'm also extremely excited about autonomous cars, but neither desire nor think they will replace mass transit. edit: As a few people have mentioned, my suggestion that "trains are buses are much more efficient" is dubious.…

I would love to have reliable and efficient mass transit. However, for most places in the USA, that seems to be politically and socially impossible. For whatever reason, Americans have almost completely rejected public transit.

For that reason, I'm more excited about self driving cars than about public transit.

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

#110

Post by icpmacdo »

timdorr wrote: post #84
tambourine_man wrote: post #36

“From the beginning, the employees dedicated to Project Titan looked at a wide range of details. That included motorized doors that opened and closed silently. They also studied ways to redesign a car interior without a steering wheel or gas pedals, and they worked on adding virtual or augmented reality into interior displays. The team also worked on a new light and ranging detection sensor, also known as lidar. Lida…

Sounds a lot like The Homer to me: http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/The_Homer

The Simpsons episode about self driving trucks was really before it's time too
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