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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

#391

Post by jacquesm »

coldtea wrote: post #376
jacquesm wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tried globular wheels, fat wheels, thinner wheels, wooden wheels, and what have you to see what works better Yes, and 'standard wheels' would have saved them time, money and other resources and would have increased the chances of bringing a self driving car to market.

> Yes, and 'standard wheels' would have saved them time, money and other resources Time from what? It's not some team considering other kinds of wheels was holding back their self-driving researchers... You seem to have an overly linear and heavy-first concept of how such a development should go.

> Time from what?

Time from focusing on the bit that mattered. Anyway, the article linked underscores my point far better than I'm able to do.

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

#392

Post by oblio »

syockit wrote: post #289
thomasjudge wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"EEE"?

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish This is the first time I've seen it shortened to an acronym.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the first one to turn it into an acronym: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EEE :)

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

#393

Post by trapperkeeper74 »

mcphage wrote: post #133
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…

> That business is tettering on failure They sold over 4 million Macs this past quarter, so I don't know what you're going on about here.

Numbers today are all well and good, but goodwill and rate-of-change indicate future trends. People will tire of $3000 laptops with nonfunctional WiFi and Apple Authorized Service Centers voiding their AppleCare warranties.

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

#394

Post by trapperkeeper74 »

praneshp wrote: post #152
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…

>That business is tettering[sic] on failure ... Citation required. (other than you refusing to buy one). > Looking at Lenovo and System76 machines instead. Please don't do System76, their laptops are pieces of crap. My wife and I have had good experiences with thinkpads though.

Keywords "Looking at." I'll take that as a datapoint.

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

#395

Post by trapperkeeper74 »

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.

There's less affordances for touch-typing based on the shape of keys like Lenovo or older keyboards for boundaries of keys... it just makes typing harder unnecessarily to shave a few millimeters.

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

#396

Post by trapperkeeper74 »

dasil003 wrote: post #199
technimad wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Touchbar is definitely a no-go, requires looking down and breaks flow.

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

#397

Post by semi-extrinsic »

bluGill wrote: post #343
icanhackit wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because outsourcing car manufacturing doesn't make much sense. #1 It allows you to focus on design as opposed to supply chain management. #2 If the supply chain is centralised where production takes place then that bit of missing trunk carpet, as Elon Musk lamented, won't take two weeks to get to you and hold up the production line - It's down the road. > One shipping container holds one car. Which makes me think -…

Electric cars stick with the sedan/truck model for the same reason non-electric cars do: it is what people actually want. 90% of the time a car/truck only carries one person to/from work with nothing else. However that other 10% means the single occupant car will not work. I have a car that gets 40mpg, and a truck that gets 18mpg. After you account for the extra insurance, license, taxes, and maintenance on my car, I…

> Electric cars stick with the sedan/truck model for the same reason non-electric cars do: it is what people actually want.

Precisely this. Actually, you don't need to take our word for it. Several manufacturers small and large have tried the "tiny electric car" concept in Europe, a continent much more in love with small cars than the US, starting over a decade ago, and none have actually made it a success. E.g. the Reva (G-Wiz in the UK) was in sale from 2001 to 2013 with a total of 4 600 cars sold worldwide.

Compare that e.g. to the sales volumes of the Renault Zoe (60 000 cars sold since 2012) or the Nissan Leaf (250 000 cars sold since 2011).

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

#398

Post by ruleabidinguser »

jacquesm wrote: post #364
_jal wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But before then you are simply wasting your time. I disagree. You seem to be discounting the learning aspect. Building an institutional knowledge base of the pile of systems that make up a car is a large task by itself. Different shops approach it differently. One may obsessively reverse engineer the competition, another might tinker with longtime designs. I fully expect the managers in question saw the spherical w…

2%? How about 0.0002%.

0

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

#399

Post by icanhackit »

bluGill wrote: post #343
icanhackit wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because outsourcing car manufacturing doesn't make much sense. #1 It allows you to focus on design as opposed to supply chain management. #2 If the supply chain is centralised where production takes place then that bit of missing trunk carpet, as Elon Musk lamented, won't take two weeks to get to you and hold up the production line - It's down the road. > One shipping container holds one car. Which makes me think -…

Electric cars stick with the sedan/truck model for the same reason non-electric cars do: it is what people actually want. 90% of the time a car/truck only carries one person to/from work with nothing else. However that other 10% means the single occupant car will not work. I have a car that gets 40mpg, and a truck that gets 18mpg. After you account for the extra insurance, license, taxes, and maintenance on my car, I…

Apple has never been a company that serves everyone, hence the reason they have a only a minor market share. They care about aesthetics and ease of use - which is why there isn't the tractor equivalent of a smart phone in their lineup. Your shoulder use cases means you probably wouldn't buy a vehicle made by Apple, similar to how if you need X feature in a phone and Apple doesn't provide it you'd buy a suitable alternative.

Let's go backwards with this one: What are most road trips for? Commuting. Would Apple want to make a vehicle for all uses and conditions? Doubtful. Would Apple want to make a truck? Highly doubtful.

They only need to make a vehicle that covers a considerable number of (but not all) use cases. If it can get people to work, to a store, to a friends house, to a restaurant or bar then the number of people who would want one is considerable. It would probably be better suited to those living in cities, but that's still a lot of people who notably require something that doesn't take up much space as parking is at a premium. Better yet, the vehicle could park itself, return home when not needed, pick up the occupant on demand or even car-share the way Elon Musk predicts Tesla owners might lease their vehicles.

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

#400

Post by icanhackit »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #397
bluGill wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric cars stick with the sedan/truck model for the same reason non-electric cars do: it is what people actually want. 90% of the time a car/truck only carries one person to/from work with nothing else. However that other 10% means the single occupant car will not work. I have a car that gets 40mpg, and a truck that gets 18mpg. After you account for the extra insurance, license, taxes, and maintenance on my car, I…

> Electric cars stick with the sedan/truck model for the same reason non-electric cars do: it is what people actually want. Precisely this. Actually, you don't need to take our word for it. Several manufacturers small and large have tried the "tiny electric car" concept in Europe, a continent much more in love with small cars than the US, starting over a decade ago, and none have actually made it a success. E.g. the…

You make the mistake of thinking Apple cares about market share. Their philosophy has always been to take the largest share of profit [1], with their phone market share hovering around 10% depending on country. Similarly their computer market share hovers around 5%, but it remains highly profitable.

Pair automation with a small, likely stylish car and demand from city-dwellers would be enough if Apple released something compelling.

[1] Google "apple smartphone profit market share"

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