Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources

#631

Post by agumonkey » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 10:46 AM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #599

mortenjorck wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each of these comparisons makes sense at only the most superficial level. The automotive industry may have more in common with personal electronics than it did thirty years ago, but forced comparisons belie the unique and complex challenges in shipping a road-legal car. And yet, that massive gulf is the whole point here. Apple is treading in 95% unfamiliar waters, but the company has proven time and again this is its…

Wait, they definitely made phones and watches before. You just don't remember them ;)

I read about this a few years ago. I really had no memory of their attemps.. but what I wonder is how deep they tried to market these attempts at telephony and other devices. in the 90s. Was it more a little side game or did they claim to 'reinvent the phone' back then ? The only similar event I can remember is the newton.

Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources

#632

Post by agumonkey » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 10:52 AM UTC

RealityVoid wrote: post #502

agumonkey wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure an EV is still that much more complex in terms of part count from a phone ? An ICE I would agree.

I can assure you that only in the instrument cluster and the central console area you have the same amount of complexity as in a smartphone. Now add the rest of the car.

I meant critical component, not seat buttons. People are getting too involved in this.

Nobody gives a damn about the infotainment or door knobs.. it's delegated to one supplier just like a phone charger or any secondary part.

The car mechanics, engine, battery and control units are what I was mostly thinking about.

If Musk keeps on going their EVs car body will be two cast parts, so in terms of supply chain management the complexity is gone into the manufacturing process.

Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources

#633

Post by ClumsyPilot » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 10:52 AM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #544

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> iPhones definitely have lights. I am sorry, are you trolling? Are you seriously comparing smash test on a phone with regulatory crash test on a car? Have you thought about this at all? Do iPhones have crumple zones designed in? Do they asses performance of the chassis after 30 years of corrosion? Do they operate in 50 degree Dubai or -30 Siberia? Do they travel at 100 m/h? How many Gs does an SSD (~100) survive as…

I could just as easily ask you whether cars have to engineer at the scale of 5 nanometers. Or whether cars have to support thousands of third party engineers adding arbitrary add-on components. Or whether automakers worry about hardening their security against nation state actors. I'm sorry, but do you honestly believe that automobiles are more complex from an engineering standpoint than microelectronics? How could y…

'whether cars have to engineer at the scale of 5 nanometers'

Thats done by TSMC, but you are right, I have much higher confidence in them producing a car than I do in Apple.

> do you honestly believe that automobiles are more complex from an engineering standpoint than microelectronics?

By two orders of magnitudes, at least! Modern car encompasses microelectronics, safety critical software and hardware design, passenger safety, repairability, corrosion, and thousands of other issues phones and laptops never face. You can't just push an OTA and fix a flawed engine. You can't tell you users 'they are holding it wrong'

> How could you possibly explain why the microchip was invented 100 years after the automobile?

How do you explain that Segway was invented after the microchip?

Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources

#634

Post by argonaut » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 10:54 AM UTC

modeless wrote: post #157

haberman wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhat ironically, the physical controls for the turns signals are by far the worst part of the whole Tesla UI. I've had my Model 3 for over two years now, and I still cannot reliably cancel a turn signal, or "soft push" the signal so it only blinks 3 times. It's infuriating to inadvertently signal left, then right, then left again, as you frantically try to just cancel the turn signal. I'm broadcasting confusion a…

I give the "worst" award to the wiper controls, but I do dislike the mushy feel of the control stalks and the way turn signal cancellation works. Last time I drove a BMW I recall it working similarly though, so maybe it's just the style now?

BMW switched back to normal turn stalks in more recent cars.

Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources

#635

Post by pxtail » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 10:58 AM UTC

the_arun wrote: post #598

mamp wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that they don’t need to. They are not selling advertising, they are selling privacy as a service. E.g. Apple maps breaks apart your journey on their side so they can’t reconstruct your journey from a to b.

They may not need maps for this. They could use geolocation or “findMyDevice” service which may be collecting this data already. Right?

No no no, stop it, it's Apple and this word is the synonym to "privacy", you are not buying a device, it's like second mother, caring about you and protecting your privacy with angel wings.

Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources

#636

Post by DrScientist » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 11:14 AM UTC

abhinavsharma wrote: post #21

This is starting to make increasingly more sense even though Apple making a car seemed laughable a few years ago. Apple is fundamentally now a company that can move immense amounts of capital into new industries with the underlying ethos of user experience. Apple Card was perhaps a dipping of the toes moment. In theory, Tesla shouldn't be worth what it is because the tech behind it is increasingly getting commoditize…

I think you underestimate some of the existing car makers.

Making cars isn't just a question of R&D, it's a question of being able to manufacture at scale and quality.

This is something that Telsa have really struggled with - as a result the reliability of Tesla cars isn't as good as it should be. Telsa need to really crack this - but it's not as easy as it seems - that's why certain car brands succeed in petrol era, and others didn't - the ability to make them well is what, in the end, separated companies.

Electric cars are fundamentally a lot simpler than try to drive the car forward with a series of controlled explosions - but the key usability challenges are:

- charging times - range

Progress is being made on both, but if somebody can really crack them, that's the game changer.

Electric vehicles aren't new, as a child my milk was delivered from an electric vehicle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_float

Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources

#637

Post by ianai » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 11:18 AM UTC

TrackerFF wrote: post #601

wobbly_bush wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't even begin to imagine how a walled garden for a car would look like. Perhaps there are examples from already existing car manufacturers.

John Deere? I mean, a lot of the recent right-to-repair controversy in the US has been centered around farmers, and their ongoing battles against machine producers / makers like John Deere. The gist is that you can't do jack sh!t on a modern John Deere, because all the software involved to diagnose/modify/operate their machines are strictly proprietary, and only available to the company, or authorized dealers and rep…

The John Deere example is so bad it almost seems manufactured to push out small farmers. It seems like the opposite of a system that claims to be about markets leading to efficiency.

Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources

#638

Post by onethought » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 11:20 AM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #310

tobr wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Past performance is not indicative of future results etc, but you’re right, this is basically exactly what Palm CEO Ed Colligan said about the rumored iPhone a few months before it was revealed[1]: > “We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.” 1: https://daringfireball.net/2006/…

And they didn't. Iphone 1 was far from a commercial success. 3GS was the first one that approached the cult status. It tool them 4 generations to get there, and a lot of money.

4 years you mean, generating profit the entire time. You have a very high bar for commercial success.

Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources

#639

Post by HPsquared » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 11:21 AM UTC

ethbr0 wrote: post #369

jandrese wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> single block of aluminum iCar Space gray, chamfered edges, 115 hp, 4 wheels $100,000

An alternate reality where Apple makes the Cybertruck.

Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources

#640

Post by starfallg » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 11:24 AM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #519

foxtr0t wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're asking this question seriously, I have to ask a clarification question: what are we actually talking about? Are we comparing just certain aspects of production of the whole thing? If you think about this from an engineering perspective for even 30 seconds there are so many differences that come to mind. - Pack has to go through an order of magnitude more charge cycles than a phone - Must operate in a much w…

> Pack has to go through an order of magnitude more charge cycles than a phone I don't think this is true. Most electric cars are re-charged once a day, which is about the same as a phone. > Must operate in a much wider variety of conditions than a phone Also, not really true if you look at the range of temperature and conditions an iPhone is rated for. (Including water resistance. Mine went through a washing machine…

>> Pack has to go through an order of magnitude more charge cycles than a phone

>I don't think this is true. Most electric cars are re-charged once a day, which is about the same as a phone.

A car has a much longer service life than a phone, at least 3-4x longer. The battery pack, being the most expensive components of the EV, pretty much has to last the life of the car.