Me too. I'm a "car guy." I never buy a (new) car that I don't obsess about, and keep my cars for a long, long time.
But think of it this way. There were thousands if not millions of people who used to love riding horses. And they'd ride them to work, they'd use them to pull carriages, and almost all of that horse culture is now gone. And many related jobs are also gone. Blacksmiths, stagecoach drivers, carriage makers, saddle makers, stable boys, ad nauseam.
Things change.
But it is not the same. We went from holding the reins to holding the steering wheel. Now with the driverless car they are saying we are no longer qualified to take control of the vehicle. I don't mind commuting on public transport, but I still want to have my car waiting for me when I get home. If I want to safely experience a little fun acceleration up to the speed limit, that is something we have always enjoyed, even with horses. Having ones own car is a feeling of freedom that I do not care to give up.
But it is not the same. We went from holding the reins to holding the steering wheel. Now with the driverless car they are saying we are no longer qualified to take control of the vehicle. I don't mind commuting on public transport, but I still want to have my car waiting for me when I get home. If I want to safely experience a little fun acceleration up to the speed limit, that is something we have always enjoyed, even with horses. Having ones own car is a feeling of freedom that I do not care to give up.
Good points. I'm too much of a "car guy," and I enjoy driving too much to just push a button and ride. Sometimes I drive for no reason other than to enjoy my cars. Yes, I own two.
And yes, I'll be getting a new car this year and look forward to tracking it at Laguna Seca, Sonoma, and Thunderhill (and hopefully Nurburgring.) A self-driving race car would kill any of that kind of fun.
"Speed provides the one genuinely modern pleasure."
But it is not the same. We went from holding the reins to holding the steering wheel. Now with the driverless car they are saying we are no longer qualified to take control of the vehicle.
wait -- who's saying that and where? are all self-driving cars in development exclusively using designs that remove the steering wheel and manual driving option?
wait -- who's saying that and where? are all self-driving cars in development exclusively using designs that remove the steering wheel and manual driving option?
Mr Solid was presenting that scenario in no drivers license, no insurance, etc. I haven't read anyone speculating that it will be optional except in the testing phase because the talking points are always that the computer can do a better job of driving than a human plus his suggestion that an on demand car service will be prevelant.
And? Why should one business want to give away money to another business that doesn't offer any value to the first?
Few people buy cars outside dealerships because in many places that's the law -- as the recent events have shown us the auto lobby has cemented protections for dealers into state laws and fights to keep it that way. it will take time to undo this. In my own state we have similar laws for casket manufacturing, which had to be done by an association-approved network of dealers, I mean morticians. The monks had to take their right to make and sell wooden caskets direct to consumers to the state Supreme Court, where they won, of course.
Old boys clubs don't like to play nice.
So you must obviously support Current C over Apple pay then, as that's exactly what that about for the retailers.
To say that dealers don't serve a useful purpose is nonsense.
Somehow, I don't think that casket making is on the same level as automobile sales and support.
The oil companies, carmakers, and tire companies are all part of a toxic symbiosis. Almost a multi-industry oligopoly.
There used to be a trolley system in the SF Bay area called the Key System that crossed the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge.
It was replaced in the late 50's by paved roads and the AC Transit bus system. There's still a Key Route Blvd. near me.
And the transition to buses was funded by ... wait for it ... Standard Oil of California, Philips Petroleum, General Motors,
and <span style="line-height:1.4em;">Firestone Tire. All of whom either sell or rely heavily on petroleum-based products.</span>
<span style="line-height:1.4em;">Oh, and the asphalt used to pave roads is a solid form of petroleum. It's everywhere. </span>
The<span style="line-height:1.4em;"> petroleum industry is</span>
<span style="line-height:1.4em;">?deeply entrenched. </span>
They've made themselves a part of our infrastructure. Electric cars are just part of the solution.
What's the point? There's nothing unusual in one part of an industry supporting the other part. You can't blame them, you need to blame Eisenhower. He was the one that destroyed the railroads in favor of cars and trucks. In doing so, the electric trolleys, and trains that were on line, or coming on line were either reduced in importance, or eliminated entirely.
If he didn't spend these billions on highways, and instead spent it one railroads and mass transit, things would be very different today.
Just that your numbers were an oversimplification. You did multiplication, and said that's what they'd make ("I think Apple could work with that.") They'd clear about 60-70% less than your number as margin after all the costs are taken out (Roughly. Hard to predict channel margins when vehicles largely aren't sold through retail channels, exactly.)
I'm not suggesting Apple will or won't get into this.
They'll go wherever they think they can solve a problem better than anyone else has before. Vehicles are ripe territory. Car manufacturers have generally felt protected from newcomers due to high costs of entry - both in manufacturing and in meeting government regulation, not to mention protectionism around dealer-as-the-distribution-channel.
It's entirely possible people are overthinking this. Perhaps Apple doesn't want to get into making the whole car, and the "intervention" is really a way of saying, "You car manufacturers have made a mess of in-car telematics. CANBUS is a fragmented nightmare. Just as we made it possible for people to follow our in-car entertainment spec with CarPlay, we're going to expand this and issue a spec for all telematics (covering all passenger compartment amenities, and maybe even getting involved in engine management.)"
We saw the Chrysler (FIAT-owned) minivans equipped with test equipment. We know they have auto shop space. But none of that says they have to make a car - maybe it's about using CarPlay as a wedge to integrate with every system in a car, and make all the interfaces and interactions better? After all, they already have almost all of the major car manufacturers on board with CarPlay.
Historically, Apple benefits from deeper integration in cars. iPod support was a big deal for car purchasers. FM transmitter sales are way down. CarPlay and some speculative even-deeper-integration cements the iPhone and car symbiosis.
You don't know any of the financials here.. My numbers were simplified, sure, but that doesn't mean that they aren't representative of reality. Many times we were told that Apple couldn't make it in a different industry, but they have. While auto making is further out for them, so what? That doesn't mean anything. Often, it takes someone from outside to make a significantly better product, because they don't have the dependencies those in the industry do.
And Apple isn't going to start from scratch as an auto manufacturer. An auto manufacturer will build these, just as happens with all of their other products. I've addressed the regulatory process in an older thread. With an electric car, the regulations are much simpler. There are far fewer of them. And the manufacturer of Apple's cars will be very familiar with them. They will work together on this. It isn't a major problem.
As far as selling them goes, again, there is no reason to believe that Apple won't have dealers. I can see Apple specific portions of a car dealership devoted to Apple, with specially trained staff, and even possibly, an Apple person there. Likely, they would go to the larger regional and national dealers to do this as they do with Best Buy, and others around the world. Possibly, Apple might even choose to sell some directly, though I'm not so sure about whether Apple would want to do all of that themselves.
The oil companies, carmakers, and tire companies are all part of a toxic symbiosis. Almost a multi-industry oligopoly.
There used to be a trolley system in the SF Bay area called the Key System that crossed the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge.
It was replaced in the late 50's by paved roads and the AC Transit bus system. There's still a Key Route Blvd. near me.
And the transition to buses was funded by ... wait for it ... Standard Oil of California, Philips Petroleum, General Motors,
and <span style="line-height:1.4em;">Firestone Tire. All of whom either sell or rely heavily on petroleum-based products.</span>
<span style="line-height:1.4em;">Oh, and the asphalt used to pave roads is a solid form of petroleum. It's everywhere. </span>
The<span style="line-height:1.4em;"> petroleum industry is</span>
<span style="line-height:1.4em;">?deeply entrenched. </span>
They've made themselves a part of our infrastructure. Electric cars are just part of the solution.
I really doubt that would work in the USA with such a large population in rural areas. In congested areas we have public transportation already. It is in the cities where I see a great need to modernize public transportation. Buses are just an ugly throw back to the last century.
Companies with good products fail all the time due to idiot management teams.
However the problem with electric cars is the same now as it was back then, batteries suck as power sources. That is the real problem with electric cars that won't be overcomed anytime soon. Having worked in manufacturing technology for years I'm fully familiar with electric motors and as such realize they are ideal for transportation. The problem is once you put them in a car you couple that highly reliable machine with a power source that is very bulky and for many simply doesn't last long enough to support their daily needs.
The history of the internal combustion engine is very interesting in its own right. However you seem to think that no research has gone into battery technology. The fact is a great deal of research has gone into all sorts of batteries. I follow many engineering trade magazines and so forth, as such I can say there is more money going into battery research then you might imagine. The problem is that there simply hasn't been a viable solution for automobiles that would allow them to replace gasoline powered transportation. The other big problem is there is no electrical infrastructure in place to handle every body plugging their cars in at 7 PM.
I really believe that the only way to get off gasoline completely is to go nuclear. Of course that freaks people out often the result of being ill informed but I don't see many alternative. As such we would need to develope a clean fusion process with it going into large trucks and trains first.
First of all, I never even hinted that money hasn't gone into battery research. But, most of that money has come in the last two decades. Before that, there wasn't a need for much better batteries. And most of that money that did go into research over most of that 100 years, or so, wasn't for automobile use. Again, just in the last two decades, or so. But even there, most money has gone into batteries for mobile electronics.
But, if battery operated cars, which were popular in 1900, had continued as a major form, then much more money would have gone into battery research earlier on. I'm not saying it would have done too much good, unfortunately, because the technologies that were needed for modern batteries weren't themselves yet invented.
But something you, and others, are not thinking about. Our social mores are determined by a number of things. If many people continued to use electric cars, and they were used for shorter trips, the railroads would still have enabled most longer range transportation, as they still do in Europe.
So two things. One is that electric cars could have been very viable, and if so, and then later, Eisenhower hadn't killed the railroads to such a great extent, they could be viable today, even with a short range of possibly 75 miles. People would have been used to doing it that way, and we would see recharging stations all over.
It's rarely one thing OR the other, it can be both. Sometimes, history hinges on one thing happening. It would be interesting to see what would have happened if they hadn't gone out of business.
What's the point? There's nothing unusual in one part of an industry supporting the other part. You can't blame them, you need to blame Eisenhower. He was the one that destroyed the railroads in favor of cars and trucks. In doing so, the electric trolleys, and trains that were on line, or coming on line were either reduced in importance, or eliminated entirely.
If he didn't spend these billions on highways, and instead spent it one railroads and mass transit, things would be very different today.
I have two points:
1. Eisenhower is dead.
2. The oil, tire, and automotive companies are alive and kicking and will fight to maintain the non-electric status quo.
The oil companies, carmakers, and tire companies are all part of a toxic symbiosis. Almost a multi-industry oligopoly.
There used to be a trolley system in the SF Bay area called the Key System that crossed the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge.
It was replaced in the late 50's by paved roads and the AC Transit bus system. There's still a Key Route Blvd. near me.
And the transition to buses was funded by ... wait for it ... Standard Oil of California, Philips Petroleum, General Motors,
and <span style="line-height:1.4em;">Firestone Tire. All of whom either sell or rely heavily on petroleum-based products.</span>
<span style="line-height:1.4em;">Oh, and the asphalt used to pave roads is a solid form of petroleum. It's everywhere. </span>
The<span style="line-height:1.4em;"> petroleum industry is</span>
<span style="line-height:1.4em;">?deeply entrenched. </span>
They've made themselves a part of our infrastructure. Electric cars are just part of the solution.
1. Eisenhower is dead.
2. The oil, tire, and automotive companies are alive and kicking and will fight to maintain the non-electric status quo.
Doesn't matter, what he set in motion has become part of the American way of life. He has to be blamed for that. The automotive companies and tire companies are certainly not kicking to keep gas power alive. Why you would even say that is hard to understand.
And you should know that it was Exxon, in the early '90's, that first worked on Li-on battery technology for cars. They spent a !billion before givi f up. It wasn't until years later that they became usable for that purpose, and even today, with $billions spent on battery R&D, we still haven't been able to come up with a significantly better battery, then ten years ago.
Comments
Me too. I'm a "car guy." I never buy a (new) car that I don't obsess about, and keep my cars for a long, long time.
But think of it this way. There were thousands if not millions of people who used to love riding horses. And they'd ride them to work, they'd use them to pull carriages, and almost all of that horse culture is now gone. And many related jobs are also gone. Blacksmiths, stagecoach drivers, carriage makers, saddle makers, stable boys, ad nauseam.
Things change.
But it is not the same. We went from holding the reins to holding the steering wheel. Now with the driverless car they are saying we are no longer qualified to take control of the vehicle. I don't mind commuting on public transport, but I still want to have my car waiting for me when I get home. If I want to safely experience a little fun acceleration up to the speed limit, that is something we have always enjoyed, even with horses. Having ones own car is a feeling of freedom that I do not care to give up.
But it is not the same. We went from holding the reins to holding the steering wheel. Now with the driverless car they are saying we are no longer qualified to take control of the vehicle. I don't mind commuting on public transport, but I still want to have my car waiting for me when I get home. If I want to safely experience a little fun acceleration up to the speed limit, that is something we have always enjoyed, even with horses. Having ones own car is a feeling of freedom that I do not care to give up.
Good points. I'm too much of a "car guy," and I enjoy driving too much to just push a button and ride. Sometimes I drive for no reason other than to enjoy my cars. Yes, I own two.
And yes, I'll be getting a new car this year and look forward to tracking it at Laguna Seca, Sonoma, and Thunderhill (and hopefully Nurburgring.) A self-driving race car would kill any of that kind of fun.
"Speed provides the one genuinely modern pleasure."
- Aldous Huxley
wait -- who's saying that and where? are all self-driving cars in development exclusively using designs that remove the steering wheel and manual driving option?
Mr Solid was presenting that scenario in no drivers license, no insurance, etc. I haven't read anyone speculating that it will be optional except in the testing phase because the talking points are always that the computer can do a better job of driving than a human plus his suggestion that an on demand car service will be prevelant.
So you must obviously support Current C over Apple pay then, as that's exactly what that about for the retailers.
To say that dealers don't serve a useful purpose is nonsense.
Somehow, I don't think that casket making is on the same level as automobile sales and support.
What's the point? There's nothing unusual in one part of an industry supporting the other part. You can't blame them, you need to blame Eisenhower. He was the one that destroyed the railroads in favor of cars and trucks. In doing so, the electric trolleys, and trains that were on line, or coming on line were either reduced in importance, or eliminated entirely.
If he didn't spend these billions on highways, and instead spent it one railroads and mass transit, things would be very different today.
You don't know any of the financials here.. My numbers were simplified, sure, but that doesn't mean that they aren't representative of reality. Many times we were told that Apple couldn't make it in a different industry, but they have. While auto making is further out for them, so what? That doesn't mean anything. Often, it takes someone from outside to make a significantly better product, because they don't have the dependencies those in the industry do.
And Apple isn't going to start from scratch as an auto manufacturer. An auto manufacturer will build these, just as happens with all of their other products. I've addressed the regulatory process in an older thread. With an electric car, the regulations are much simpler. There are far fewer of them. And the manufacturer of Apple's cars will be very familiar with them. They will work together on this. It isn't a major problem.
As far as selling them goes, again, there is no reason to believe that Apple won't have dealers. I can see Apple specific portions of a car dealership devoted to Apple, with specially trained staff, and even possibly, an Apple person there. Likely, they would go to the larger regional and national dealers to do this as they do with Best Buy, and others around the world. Possibly, Apple might even choose to sell some directly, though I'm not so sure about whether Apple would want to do all of that themselves.
First of all, I never even hinted that money hasn't gone into battery research. But, most of that money has come in the last two decades. Before that, there wasn't a need for much better batteries. And most of that money that did go into research over most of that 100 years, or so, wasn't for automobile use. Again, just in the last two decades, or so. But even there, most money has gone into batteries for mobile electronics.
But, if battery operated cars, which were popular in 1900, had continued as a major form, then much more money would have gone into battery research earlier on. I'm not saying it would have done too much good, unfortunately, because the technologies that were needed for modern batteries weren't themselves yet invented.
But something you, and others, are not thinking about. Our social mores are determined by a number of things. If many people continued to use electric cars, and they were used for shorter trips, the railroads would still have enabled most longer range transportation, as they still do in Europe.
So two things. One is that electric cars could have been very viable, and if so, and then later, Eisenhower hadn't killed the railroads to such a great extent, they could be viable today, even with a short range of possibly 75 miles. People would have been used to doing it that way, and we would see recharging stations all over.
It's rarely one thing OR the other, it can be both. Sometimes, history hinges on one thing happening. It would be interesting to see what would have happened if they hadn't gone out of business.
What's the point? There's nothing unusual in one part of an industry supporting the other part. You can't blame them, you need to blame Eisenhower. He was the one that destroyed the railroads in favor of cars and trucks. In doing so, the electric trolleys, and trains that were on line, or coming on line were either reduced in importance, or eliminated entirely.
If he didn't spend these billions on highways, and instead spent it one railroads and mass transit, things would be very different today.
I have two points:
1. Eisenhower is dead.
2. The oil, tire, and automotive companies are alive and kicking and will fight to maintain the non-electric status quo.
Doesn't matter, what he set in motion has become part of the American way of life. He has to be blamed for that. The automotive companies and tire companies are certainly not kicking to keep gas power alive. Why you would even say that is hard to understand.
And you should know that it was Exxon, in the early '90's, that first worked on Li-on battery technology for cars. They spent a !billion before givi f up. It wasn't until years later that they became usable for that purpose, and even today, with $billions spent on battery R&D, we still haven't been able to come up with a significantly better battery, then ten years ago.