An Apple car wouldn't be attractive without autonomous driving. The real (and unsurprising) news here is that Apple has given up on autonomous driving. They are far, far behind Waymo and don't want to compete with them, just like how they didn't want to compete with Google for search. They simply lack the expertise to do it.
Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey
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Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey
#222I was always rather puzzled by the car. I can’t see them ever competing even with the small makers like Jaguar or Polestar or Lamborghini. They’re certainly not going to take on Ford or Mazda or Honda. The idea of making the infotainment guts is interesting but I can’t see any carmaker giving up that much control. If they don’t like CarPlay they’d never like full Apple infotainment. Sure Apple could do ADAS stuff, bu…
There are generally 3types of car buyers today.
1. People who are into cars as status items (which encompasses car enthusiasts, because lets be real, very few of those people who are into "performance" even touch 50% of the cars capability on public roads). This is your BMW/Porsche and other buyers.
2. People who want cheap modes of transportation. This is your cheapest level sedan buyers.
3. People who want specific utility and are willing to pay for it. This is the largest group of buyers that ranges from people wanting the convenience/novelty/technology of an electric vehicle, to people who want the safety/robustness/cargo capacity of a pickup truck. Apple car would definitely fit in here.
Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey
#223I was always rather puzzled by the car. I can’t see them ever competing even with the small makers like Jaguar or Polestar or Lamborghini. They’re certainly not going to take on Ford or Mazda or Honda. The idea of making the infotainment guts is interesting but I can’t see any carmaker giving up that much control. If they don’t like CarPlay they’d never like full Apple infotainment. Sure Apple could do ADAS stuff, bu…
From the other side, phone and home electronics producer Xiaomi invested few billions into car business and now is producing car similar to Porsche. Why you think Apple can't do the same if focused?
I was under the impression that Xiaomi did not target only the top end of the market as Apple tends to. I would expect an Apple card to start at $120k or more.
I suppose Apple could go after the Corolla or something if they really wanted to but that just doesn’t seem like an Apple move to me.
Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey
#224Sounds like Apple is in panic mode and FOMO because they are late to the GPT game. Similar cases didn't work out for MS
They absolutely did. Microsoft was late to web and now we have O365, Azure, etc.
I'd say, however, that this is less FOMO and more employee-retention. A team shifting from electric cars to generative AI sounds more like a directionless hype squad where you park flight risks who can still add value to other departments while they play with the newest shiny.
Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Apple is a best-in-class second mover. Apple's biggest successes have come from being the first mover in a brand new space. Apple II, Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, iPad, Airpods, Watch were all category defining rather than "me too" products. In fact Apple is terrible at throwing its hat into an already crowded space, and doubly so when it comes to software.
Really? really ? you think when the iPhone came out the space was not crowded? You think they defined the category? Jobs himself have put up a number of smartphones in his 2007 presentation. Yes, the iPhone was far, very far better but it was definitely not a first. Same thing with the iPod vs Diamond Rio MP3 layers. As for the Watch, gosh, I do not even know where to start. Pebble Kickstarter two years before that?…
Look at a picture of what the top 10 smartphones looked like the day before iPhone launched and then again a few years later. That is what category defining means.
They didn't take whatever was out there in the market and copy it/make it incrementally better. They started from scratch and built something drastically different and better than the rest. Same for iPod (yes there were plenty of cheap MP3 players out there, but none of them were comparable), Airpods and all the rest.
Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey
#226This is a smart move. Apple seems so far behind in generative AI it's making Google look innovative.
> Apple seems so far behind in generative AI Apple is a best-in-class second mover. With the clusterfuck that has been generative AI (from OpenAI’s corporate drama to Google renaming and reörganizing their products every fifteen minutes) this seems prescient, with the only savvy player so far being Microsoft.
MS is putting all its eggs in one basket at the moment, AI everywhere.
That's not savvy that's desperate.
Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I absolutely believe that Apple can bring something to car industry - I remember Elon once said that Teslas hidden strength that no other car manufacturer caught on to was treating the car as technology akin to an iPhone with incremental updates and improvements pushed over the air. I've owned a Model X for a few years and I see that approach but don't think Tesla has perfected it. Apple has the potential to in…
>>for example, when you press the brakes there isn't and hasn't been for a long time a direct connection to the physical brakes I'm sorry but you're getting it completely wrong. Brake by wire isn't legal anywhere in any market of the world and consequently there are zero cars implemented this way - every car currently on sale everywhere has to have a physical connection between the brake pedal and the actual brakes.…
Thank you, yes that was probably literally the worst example I could have given.
But isn't there famously brake by wire in toyota EVs? And that physical connection is required as a fallback?
Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does everyone have to it?
Apple has a reputation to uphold, of being bleeding edge and having the best, latest, greatest tech. Their "AI" is a not-so-great scripted bot over a decade old at this point. They are laughably behind the curve. Android should see widespread deployment of Gemini baked into the next generation of phones, and this could have a significant impact on Apple.
> Apple has a reputation to uphold, of being bleeding edge and having the best, latest, greatest tech.
Quite the opposite.
The iPod was panned by tech commentators; famously, "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."
The iPhone saw similar reactions; https://www.fastcompany.com/40436054/10-of-the-most-interest.... "There is nothing revolutionary or disruptive about any of the technologies."; "The real elephant in the room is the fact that I just spent $600 on my iPhone and it can’t do some crucial functions that even $50 handsets can."; "That virtual keyboard will be about as useful for tapping out emails and text messages as a rotary phone."
I can't imagine how apoplectic Gates was over the iPad's success after a decade of trying to make a Windows tablet sell.
Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
An Apple that doesn't attempt something because it's hard is an Apple that is going to fade. There aren't many trillion dollar markets; I think attempting to break into cars was probably the most accessible of the trillion dollar markets to Apple. What were the alternatives? Oil? Real Estate? ...?
A self-driving car is not something that Apple has any relevant expertise at building. They can't even make siri work well. They had zero hope to make a self-driving car.
They could easily buy Volkswagen sized company from the reserve cash they have and still have quite a good amount of reserve left. I don't think car experience is something that is the limiting factor.
Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey
#230I was always rather puzzled by the car. I can’t see them ever competing even with the small makers like Jaguar or Polestar or Lamborghini. They’re certainly not going to take on Ford or Mazda or Honda. The idea of making the infotainment guts is interesting but I can’t see any carmaker giving up that much control. If they don’t like CarPlay they’d never like full Apple infotainment. Sure Apple could do ADAS stuff, bu…
> I can’t see them ever competing even with the small makers like Jaguar or Polestar or Lamborghini. None of these are practical luxury car brands. Certainly their competitors would be, say, BMW or Porsche?
I was trying to pick brands that we’re both expensive and low volume. If I don’t think Apple could get the sales of some of those makers then I definitely don’t think they could target numbers like BMW.
Lamborghini may be a little small for that list, I don’t really know. But I would think they would stay pretty boutique due to output size.