Earlier quoted context omitted.
They make money from servicing the car, which Apple is quite skilled at capturing as well..
Which is expected to be severely reduced with EVs unless Apple's plans are to enter the ICE market.
Fair point.
Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources
411–420 of 699 posts
Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources
#412Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I rented a Tesla I recall being able to set all these controls with my voice.
Probably not the best place to ask this, but how well does it understand languages different from English?
Or even English with something other than a North American accent?
Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources
#413Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Apple is fundamentally now a company that can move immense amounts of capital into new industries with the underlying ethos of user experience. Also: insane supply-chain management chops, a skill that is more and more transferable - especially for electric cars.
I can just see Apple now, milling the entire body of the car out of a single block of aluminum using a 4 axis C&C machine.
You're joking but interestingly Tesla at the Battery Day presentation revealed a giant injection mould to make the aluminium chassis for one of their cars, which will simplify the manufacturing process.
So we're going into uni-body territory but with a faster, simpler process than milling/printing. If Apple is happy buying thousands of milling machines for laptops and phones, a chassis injection mould might be the process they'd need to break into the car space.
Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources
#414Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the flipside, my 2012 "dumb" car with the good third-party bluetooth adapter I got last year is the end-all, be-all of car electronics for me. It can only go downhill from there. To me, car electronics should be like a Kindle is for reading. There is a period after you launch the Kindle but before you start reading where you interact with it like a smartphone or tablet. But then once you get started, the notion th…
Yeah, that’s sort of what I like about the Tesla: the interactions I care about are almost all accessed through the controls on the steering wheel (volume up/down, next/previous track, play/pause, cruise control adjustments) or through sticks. The screen mostly is for setting up music when you first get into the car, navigation, car status info (speed, fsd visualization, speed limit, energy consumption). Also, when c…
Cruise control and playback control on steering wheel are not exclusive to and predate Tesla.
Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources
#415Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't know why you're being downvoted. Musk has consistently said their main goal is to become the most advanced manufacturer in the world. Building the machine that builds the machine is what they're aiming for.
Probably because Tesla hasn't had much success in terms of advancement of automated assembly. They went down the same rabbit hole that a few other automakers already explored and discovered what others already did—that high levels of factory automation simply doesn't work. (Yet.) At best, Tesla factories are currently comparable to the state of the art in terms of car factory automation.
You obviously don't follow Tesla very closely. Sandy Munro of Munro associates has literally called Tesla's engineering "mind blowing" and at least 5 years ahead of any other manufacturer. If you are not familiar, Sandy Munro is one of the leading automotive manufacturing experts, if not the top expert. So I'm going to take his word for it rather than yours.
Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources
#416Earlier quoted context omitted.
They have been working in a similar highly regulated space (medical devices) for years.
You're talking about the Apple Watch, right? That's peanuts of regulatory compliance stuff compared to the amount of regulations related to building a car in the US market. The FDA requires this big fat disclaimer: > The ECG app is intended for over-the-counter (OTC)use. The ECG data displayed by the ECG app is intended for informational use only. The user is not intended to interpret or take clinical action based on…
That's not a disclaimer. That's (part of) the indications for use, which is a term of art. These are inherently narrowing statements, and they are in place to constrain what the company can market a device as, and gives the FDA a stick to beat you with if you aren't careful about this.
If you follow the submission you'll also see they were granted approval to market as a de-novo filing as a class II device, so it's not as much work as a PMA but the regulatory work is not peanuts. Since then they have self-predicated for a 510(k) on a newer version.
Even for a smallish software only project like this, it means they had to set up all the basic infrastructure and have it audited. They also wrote a ton of formal engineering process documentation, a full design history file, etc. These skills at least are pretty transferable.
Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources
#417Earlier quoted context omitted.
Competitive in what sense?
Mostly price and battery range. Sure, they might make a better design and interior, but price and battery range are the biggest competitive factors with EVs
> Mostly price
apple tends to not make the cheapest version of anything it makes (quite the opposite). I'm sure the people buying the iCar are going to be the same ones dropping $1200 every year for the latest iphone
> battery range
they seem to have a lot of experience with batteries
> price and battery range are the biggest competitive factors with EVs
and the smartphone ecosystem was full of tiny physical keyboards before apple released the iphone. Apple has a unique way of redefining "must have" features when they enter the market.
If anything, I think tesla will be the android of EVs and the iCar will be the iphone of EVs
Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources
#418Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cars that charge with lighting port...
Please don't waste people's time with comments like this.
I mean it's an interesting point. Tesla made their own charging plug because they didn't like J1772, who's to say Apple wouldn't do the same? It's the one part of Apple's track record I don't think anyone can possibly argue against.
If the landscape is dotted with three types of chargers, two of which are mutually incompatible, what does that mean for consumers and range?
Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources
#419Has Apple been poaching significant self driving talent to attempt self driving version of the electric car? Based on their consumer electronics past, Apple would probably nail the design and get the hardware mostly right. For self driving I think Apple's best bet here to me seems like licensing Waymo tech. Waymo seems to have the lead amongst all and Apple would be more interested in the complete product unlike Waym…
The inside scoop is that Apple has been poaching CMU's RI PhDs in entire cohorts, but I might be wrong.
I know people who interviewed for a position there (2018), and it is so covert, that you couldn't guess it was an Apple building until you are literally in the interview room. The building, reception and address had zero indication that it might be Apple.
Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources
#420IMHO they should do a sprinter van with a built in sleeper - and a commercial model for last mile delivery/service/transport. Hit the high end Winnebago market, family size Uber market, AWS delivery/service market, and US Postal Service. Don't compete with Tesla on sportscars. Be the new minivan.
Not exactly on brand for Apple.