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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

#191

Post by [deleted] »

threeseed wrote: post #154
greggman wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is a 20+ year history of PDAs before the iPhone. For all intents and purposes my 1998 Windows CE Casio PDA looks and acts like a first gen iPhone. It's home screen has a grid of 3x4 icons of apps and general works very analogous to the iPhone. Apple did an amazing job of polishing the PDA but they made an incremental jump being at the right place at the right time with affordable cellular data and capacitive to…

> For all intents and purposes my 1998 Windows CE Casio PDA looks and acts like a first gen iPhone I assume you also think a Hyundai looks and acts like a Ferrari. Because that is what you are saying. I owned that PDA as well as the Treo 650 which was far better and the iPhone isn't an incremental jump. It was a complete revolution.

[deleted]

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

#192

Post by hueving »

froo wrote: post #135
1_2__4 wrote: post #113

Can the "mass production self driving cars are just a couple of years away" meme finally die yet? Are we ready to admit that maybe this is a harder thing to invent than we've been trying to make ourselves believe?

Given there are auto manufacturers[1] that already exist with self driving cars, I'm going to go ahead and say its not a meme and more just a technology in the process of being fully realised. Some times, things just take time. Especially when you're trying to create machines capable of not killing the general public. [1] https://www.tesla.com/autopilot

Tesla's are not self-driving cars in the sense of revolutionizing any driving. You still have to pay attention and be ready to take over all of the time. That means you can't sleep, read emails, etc. on your commute. It's a fancy lane assist that reduces mundane movements you have to make and it improves safety, but it's not resulting in super cheap automated taxis or overnight road trips.

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

#193

Post by 2bitencryption »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #186
josteink wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have the iPhone because Apple was so ambitious. When you say that, you conventiently forget that Apple re -invented the smartphone. It was an proven thing, which already sold in spades in the tech/enterprise market. They took something which existed and was awkward to use, and re-did the UI layer of the whole thing. They refined something else which was already proven. They didn't invent something original from…

There is no such thing as a UI layer. UI and function are inextricably linked. For example, see iPhone's voicemail. Or the touch screen. Or the app store. None of those things could have been executed by UI teams at any other device manufacturer at the time.

when I was watching the keynote live, and Jobs swiped his finger to scroll, I audibly gasped.

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

#194

Post by sumedh »

deepGem wrote: post #111
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.

Apple will not buy any US company using it's cash hoard because of tax implications. They can of course raise debt, similar to what Amazon is doing with Whole foods.

> Apple will not buy any US company using it's cash hoard because of tax implications.

Why cant Apple Ireland buy US companies?

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

#195

Post by erikpukinskis »

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…

Electric will drive down the per-mile cost of the vehicles, and autonomous will drive up the per-hour use of the vehicles, which will lead to a larger potential margin.

You can sell a car for a lot more if it's being rented out for 12 driving hours per day. Especially so if it's a high end experience. People have a hard time shelling out $60,000 for a car when they could get something pretty adequate for $30,000, but when the choice is a $2 cab ride or a $4 luxury cab ride, a lot more people will pay the margin.

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

#196

Post by sumedh »

mozumder wrote: 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.

> It's absolutely never going to happen, ever.

Famous last words?

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

#197

Post by ethbro »

hueving wrote: post #190
icanhackit wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a good point but my question still stands, why couldn't they design it in California and outsource manufacturing to Hon Hai/Foxconn the way they do with their phones? Unlike Tesla, sourcing the parts wouldn't be Apple's problem.

Because outsourcing car manufacturing doesn't make much sense. The transportation costs eat up most of the savings. That's why Toyotas, Volkswagons, etc sold in the US are made in the US. One shipping container holds 60,000 iphones. One shipping container holds one car.

Also, for historical and political reasons, auto importing tends to be subject to a lot more taxing by customs.

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

#198

Post by thaumasiotes »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #186
josteink wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have the iPhone because Apple was so ambitious. When you say that, you conventiently forget that Apple re -invented the smartphone. It was an proven thing, which already sold in spades in the tech/enterprise market. They took something which existed and was awkward to use, and re-did the UI layer of the whole thing. They refined something else which was already proven. They didn't invent something original from…

There is no such thing as a UI layer. UI and function are inextricably linked. For example, see iPhone's voicemail. Or the touch screen. Or the app store. None of those things could have been executed by UI teams at any other device manufacturer at the time.

The app store already existed for Blackberries at the time.

I'm not sure what you're talking about with voicemail.

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

#199

Post by dasil003 »

technimad wrote: post #184
trapperkeeper74 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When companies focus on just one thing in a vertical, they're incredibly vulnerable. Samsung does lots of things fairly well, with some hiccups, well beyond just personal electronics and home appliances. It's diversification. EDIT: Samsung does all sorts of things including ship-building, life insurance, construction and advertising. For example, Apple MacBook Pros have become uncool, expensive, unrepairable and impr…

I mostly agree with this post but the more I type on my new MBP keyboard the more I love it. Was skeptical at first, made a lot of noise, felt weird, but this flipped pretty fast to big appreciation.

Yeah but not the touch bar.

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

#200

Post by tribby »

hueving wrote: post #190
icanhackit wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a good point but my question still stands, why couldn't they design it in California and outsource manufacturing to Hon Hai/Foxconn the way they do with their phones? Unlike Tesla, sourcing the parts wouldn't be Apple's problem.

Because outsourcing car manufacturing doesn't make much sense. The transportation costs eat up most of the savings. That's why Toyotas, Volkswagons, etc sold in the US are made in the US. One shipping container holds 60,000 iphones. One shipping container holds one car.

I agree. and it's not just transportation, or even taxes, it's also the cost of labor. iphones are assembled in china because chinese workers are cheaper than automating those particular jobs. cars, on the other hand, are almost entirely made by robots these days.[1] there's not as big a price difference between chinese and american robots as there is between chinese and american humans.

apple has a history of entering fairly high-margin markets where the existing products don't look or feel or function very well, and then they give it the jony ive treatment. but tesla is already there, they applied apple's playbook to cars and honestly took much bigger risks to get there than apple ever would. tesla took on a LOT of debt to be competitive, and it'll be a while before they even have profit, much less good margins. it'd be very hard for apple to compete. if apple ever enters the car market, a tesla acquisition is the only thing that would make sense to me.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_lfxPI5ObM

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