Apple Car Challenges: Sobering Thoughts
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Apple Car Challenges: Sobering Thoughts
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Re: Apple Car Challenges: Sobering Thoughts
#2If Apple doesn't do it or do it properly, someone else will. Who really cares what company ends up making good, safe, reliable electric cars?
I think it goes without saying that they're not going to use the same engineering techniques they use for their other software to develop the software for the car. It's not about culture. It's about adopting very stringent procedures similar to NASA, aeronautics firms, and other industries that need to build software with extremely low rates of error. This has nothing to do with culture. These processes exist because culture fails when such low error rates and resiliency is required. Airplanes have been running incredibly complicated software without issue for decades. For that matter, cars too. Making this a culture issue is frankly ignorant of the whole software development process.
As for his past sales figures and argument that people aren't buying electric cars, he misses the point that other than Tesla there are few practical electric cars if any (Leaf's range is too short, Prius isn't an electric car, it's a hybrid, etc.) and the Teslas are priced for the upper class only.
Re: Apple Car Challenges: Sobering Thoughts
#3there’s no Moore’s Law for batteries — their “power” doesn’t double every 18 or 24 months.
However, industry-wide figures for power density show a clear upward trend. It's not exponential like Moore's law, but in just under a decade or so, electric cars are going to have range parity with gasoline ones.
Also, the graph is misleading. If you combine Tesla EV and other EVs, there is a very promising upward curve in the lower right-hand corner.
Re: Apple Car Challenges: Sobering Thoughts
#4there’s no Moore’s Law for batteries — their “power” doesn’t double every 18 or 24 months. However, industry-wide figures for power density show a clear upward trend. It's not exponential like Moore's law, but in just under a decade or so, electric cars are going to have range parity with gasoline ones. Also, the graph is misleading. If you combine Tesla EV and other EVs, there is a very promising upward curve in the…
It is exponential, actually, it's just that the growth rate is more like 1.05x per year, not the 1.5x per year of Moore's law.
Re: Apple Car Challenges: Sobering Thoughts
#5I hate the term "range anxiety". The industry used to throw it around all the time. That term shifts the blame from the product to the customer. The issue is that a vehicle with a range under 100 miles is not that useful. I could drive a car like that to work most days, but I could not make a significant deviation - to go to another work facility, customer or supplier site, or even to see a friend for dinner after work. That is not MY anxiety, it's a problem with the car. You don't overcome "range anxiety" by doing anything with the customer, you do it by putting a big battery in the car like Tesla. You can take a Tesla on a pretty long trip, or you can drive it around town all damn day with no worry.
Re: Apple Car Challenges: Sobering Thoughts
#6Apple is a consumer electronics company. They build focused hardware with software that they patch over time. Cars don't work like that. Cars are like building 100 products into one thing. Fine tuning every aspect of there design is incredibly difficult and is reflected in cost. A software for cars is completely different. For Apple to completely commit to cars, the dynamic within its culture will have to radically change. Look at Tesla, their employee culture is nothing like the other SV companies.
Re: Apple Car Challenges: Sobering Thoughts
#7I hate the term "range anxiety". The industry used to throw it around all the time. That term shifts the blame from the product to the customer. The issue is that a vehicle with a range under 100 miles is not that useful. I could drive a car like that to work most days, but I could not make a significant deviation - to go to another work facility, customer or supplier site, or even to see a friend for dinner after wo…
I live in a climate where you can potentially get stuck in the snow for few hours when going between cities (that happens maybe once per year, but today is exactly such a day, for example). In a gasoline car you would at least stay warm while waiting for the road to be unblocked. With an electric car, this might easily turn into a survival situation.
Re: Apple Car Challenges: Sobering Thoughts
#8I think people forget Tim Cook's background in supply chain. He is one of the most experienced "process-oriented" managers in the world, backed up by $203 billion in cash, with a reputation for lifestyle products and a strong team.
I don't think he has underestimated the challenge.
Re: Apple Car Challenges: Sobering Thoughts
#9Apple is a consumer electronics company. They build focused hardware with software that they patch over time. Cars don't work like that. Cars are like building 100 products into one thing. Fine tuning every aspect of there design is incredibly difficult and is reflected in cost. A software for cars is completely different. For Apple to completely commit to cars, the dynamic within its culture will have to radically c…
Wifi, two cameras one with a flash, finger-print, GPS, gyro, accelerometer, display, force-sensitive touch displays, sensors for display, cell-reception, in/out microphone ports, co-motion processor, bluetooth, speakers, etc etc.
Not to mention a ton of software.
Those are several products in one. Wether or not they actually build and design everything themselves is irrelevant. Not all car companies makes everything themselves, most share engines and other parts.
Re: Apple Car Challenges: Sobering Thoughts
#10"Tesla takes 0.15% while losing about $4,000 per vehicle."
Other sources claim that Tesla is making 25% profit per Model S, and similar for the Model X. Is this article cherry-picking numbers?