Absolutely no chance of that happening. No competing automaker in their right mind would cede system control to Apple.
So CarPlay (which completely takes over the infotainment system) doesn't exist. That's funny, it does in my vehicle ...
Believe me I would love for Apple to take end-to-end control and produce a vehicle. But its clear that none of the commenters who imagine this have given any thought to what that actually takes. Have any of you been to a car assembly plant? Those take years to build, and years more to really get up to speed. Apple doesn't have any of those.
If Apple's going to design "all the parts," or even just the new parts they may be inventing, they'll need other factories to make those parts. Apple doesn't have any of those either, and again that's a massive employment and building effort -- Foxconn isn't going to shift direction, let's put it that way.
Tesla still struggles to make cars on a mass scale -- and they were founded 17 years ago! It's still difficult to find charging stations for Teslas in a lot of places, and even more difficult to find parts outside the dealership. That's why I don't think Apple is making a whole car -- but your comments have caused me to consider that Apple may already have a secret partner in this venture that is an already-established carmaker, and that would certainly cut down the time required to get to where Tesla is now. But as no details of that nature have really been established, you're still talking years from now.
I have no illusions about what it takes to design and build an automobile. I’m an industrial designer who has worked in aerospace for over a quarter century. Something on that scale is really hard, which explains why Apple hasn’t released anything yet. Still, we keep seeing those patent applications. Why is that?
As you surmised, Apple doesn’t need a factory of its own for any of the piece parts. It can use established industry partners to build those Apple designed parts and assemblies. But Apple will need and want a final assembly plant of its own because it will want to control final integration, assembly and checkout of each vehicle. That’s where the magic sauce gets put together.
In some ways I’m surprised to see Apple still plugging away (as evidenced through those patents). If you had asked me a couple years ago I would have predicted that they’d have given up by now. But they clearly have not.
I haven’t a clue as to whether Apple will succeed or not. Maybe it doesn’t matter. If they can push the envelope of the possible and redefine what an automobile can and should be, it’s worth the blood, sweat and tears IMO.
By the way AI, everyone is right about the Apple Car picture. Find another. It’s dated and not terribly inspiring. Maybe you could get an ArtCenter student to render something for AI for not much $$$. And then AI gets links and hits from all over because you’ve got the latest and greatest Apple Car concept.
Uh, I thought a car is what everyone thinks Apple is working on? Is there anybody out there who thinks Apple is building self-driving car software that they will sell or license to other car manufacturers?
tht: I completely agree with your assessment. Huberty is correct that this goes way beyond the infotainment system of CarPlay and that Apple needs more control (or at least sensors) of other parts of a car, but there is a near-zero chance of Apple producing its own vehicle, since they would have had to have started building assembly factories about six-to-eight years ago. I don't think Apple has any interest in producing and servicing "car parts," but I think they are developing a system of greater control over a vehicle that they will offer and license to other car makers.
What? No. I think you misread tht's comment. Apple will control the entire stack as it is wont to do. Like with everything they make, they'll partner with manufacturers who make the parts and assemble the vehicles. No way this is some sort of system that gets licensed to another brand, that makes zero sense whatsoever as it's no longer an Apple experience, it's the Motorola Rokr but in vehicle form.
Uh, I thought a car is what everyone thinks Apple is working on? Is there anybody out there who thinks Apple is building self-driving car software that they will sell or license to other car manufacturers?
tht: I completely agree with your assessment. Huberty is correct that this goes way beyond the infotainment system of CarPlay and that Apple needs more control (or at least sensors) of other parts of a car, but there is a near-zero chance of Apple producing its own vehicle, since they would have had to have started building assembly factories about six-to-eight years ago. I don't think Apple has any interest in producing and servicing "car parts," but I think they are developing a system of greater control over a vehicle that they will offer and license to other car makers.
Apple licensing automotive control software to car makers sounds like insanity to me, especially for a company like Apple. They are designing a car. They will likely have contract manufacturer build it for them, just like they do with all their devices today. They will sell it as an Apple branded vehicle. They will probably follow the Tesla model of direct sales and have in-home, onsite service for the vast majority of service needs. They won't announce anything until they feel they have a competitive product and a go-to-market strategy.
The reason I say insanity with the licensing route is mostly because of economics and Apple's ethos. Car makers, like for any device of significant effort, contract out lots of work to sub contractors. In this type of relationship, the amount of money going to the sub contractor - in this case Apple is a sub contractor - is minimized. There is a reason car software is basically shit. It's incompetency driven by the nature of how contracting works, where the sub for the software is squeezed to provide a solution at minimum dollars while the sub has to minimize the product to the point of actually making money. Apple isn't going to work this way. Every time they try, it turns out to be shit, like the Moto iTunes phones, and they know to stop.
That's just the working environment. Just wait to see what happens when the lawsuits and investigations start. This will happen. As a sub, Apple is basically going to eat it, with the car maker blaming it entirely on them at every opportunity. Apple isn't going work this way either.
HA! I hadn't even read your followup comment when I brought up the Rokr!
chasm said: And Thinkman: the only way you'll ever get fully autonomous cars is if the entire industry adopts that as a standard. Human stupidity is still too difficult for a computer to predict or deal with.
Well, that, and AI (artificial intelligence, not AppleInsider) in reality, isn't the sci-fi fantasy we've been 'sold.' It isn't really up for anything its creators didn't count on or 'teach' it.
Thankfully, the people working on this technology aren't so myopic.
Very early on there was a really attractive concept image of what an Apple Car would look like………but it seems forever now that everyone writing about the mystery car uses this horrific image. Imagine a head-on crash with virtually no front end as this image shows. If and when an actual car is released, it needs to put the fine Tesla designed cars to shame. But most importantly it needs to be THE FULLY AUTONOMOUS CAR the world's been waiting for.
Well....it’s gonna be a longggggg wait. By that time Tesla would be logging miles and miles of robo taxis and autonomous vehicles, my 1 cent hehe
Right, Apple always late to the game... and then they wind up dominating the market, my 1 cent hehe
Apple is better at creating mobile devices then anyone, so I’m sure they will dominate AR. It is hard for anyone to match them in that space, but I’m not sure about automotive...
Being pedantic here, isn’t an automobile a mobile device? 😁
So CarPlay (which completely takes over the infotainment system) doesn't exist. That's funny, it does in my vehicle ...
CarPlay is not system control, it's dashboard monitor for your iPhone.
Believe me I would love for Apple to take end-to-end control and produce a vehicle. But its clear that none of the commenters who imagine this have given any thought to what that actually takes. Have any of you been to a car assembly plant? Those take years to build, and years more to really get up to speed. Apple doesn't have any of those.
Apple doesn't "have" any assembly plants for their existing products, they're all owned and operated by manufacturing partners. If anyone would potentially upend how one thinks about what manufacturing a vehicle "actually takes" it would be Apple. Why are you assuming there's only one way to build a vehicle? They certainly aren't.
If Apple's going to design "all the parts," or even just the new parts they may be inventing, they'll need other factories to make those parts. Apple doesn't have any of those either, and again that's a massive employment and building effort -- Foxconn isn't going to shift direction, let's put it that way.
Why not? They and many other manufacturing partners have many times. Shall we revisit the well-tread story of Corning making glass for the first iPhone?
tht: I completely agree with your assessment. Huberty is correct that this goes way beyond the infotainment system of CarPlay and that Apple needs more control (or at least sensors) of other parts of a car, but there is a near-zero chance of Apple producing its own vehicle, since they would have had to have started building assembly factories about six-to-eight years ago. I don't think Apple has any interest in producing and servicing "car parts," but I think they are developing a system of greater control over a vehicle that they will offer and license to other car makers.
Absolutely no chance of that happening. No competing automaker in their right mind would cede system control to Apple. It would be like Bill Gates offering IBM an OS for their new IBM PC. That kind of dumb only happens once.
Yeah, that has NEVER happened.
In return for five years of exclusivity, roughly 10 percent of iPhone sales in AT&T stores, and a thin slice of Apple's iTunes revenue, AT&T had granted Jobs unprecedented power. He had cajoled AT&T into spending millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours to create a new feature, so-called visual voicemail, and to reinvent the time-consuming in-store sign-up process. He'd also wrangled a unique revenue-sharing arrangement, garnering roughly $10 a month from every iPhone customer's AT&T bill. On top of all that, Apple retained complete control over the design, manufacturing, and marketing of the iPhone. Jobs had done the unthinkable: squeezed a good deal out of one of the largest players in the entrenched wireless industry.
tht: I completely agree with your assessment. Huberty is correct that this goes way beyond the infotainment system of CarPlay and that Apple needs more control (or at least sensors) of other parts of a car, but there is a near-zero chance of Apple producing its own vehicle, since they would have had to have started building assembly factories about six-to-eight years ago. I don't think Apple has any interest in producing and servicing "car parts," but I think they are developing a system of greater control over a vehicle that they will offer and license to other car makers.
Absolutely no chance of that happening. No competing automaker in their right mind would cede system control to Apple. It would be like Bill Gates offering IBM an OS for their new IBM PC. That kind of dumb only happens once.
Yeah, that has NEVER happened.
In return for five years of exclusivity, roughly 10 percent of iPhone sales in AT&T stores, and a thin slice of Apple's iTunes revenue, AT&T had granted Jobs unprecedented power. He had cajoled AT&T into spending millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours to create a new feature, so-called visual voicemail, and to reinvent the time-consuming in-store sign-up process. He'd also wrangled a unique revenue-sharing arrangement, garnering roughly $10 a month from every iPhone customer's AT&T bill. On top of all that, Apple retained complete control over the design, manufacturing, and marketing of the iPhone. Jobs had done the unthinkable: squeezed a good deal out of one of the largest players in the entrenched wireless industry.
So CarPlay (which completely takes over the infotainment system) doesn't exist. That's funny, it does in my vehicle ...
CarPlay is not system control, it's dashboard monitor for your iPhone.
Believe me I would love for Apple to take end-to-end control and produce a vehicle. But its clear that none of the commenters who imagine this have given any thought to what that actually takes. Have any of you been to a car assembly plant? Those take years to build, and years more to really get up to speed. Apple doesn't have any of those.
Apple doesn't "have" any assembly plants for their existing products, they're all owned and operated by manufacturing partners. If anyone would potentially upend how one thinks about what manufacturing a vehicle "actually takes" it would be Apple. Why are you assuming there's only one way to build a vehicle? They certainly aren't.
If Apple's going to design "all the parts," or even just the new parts they may be inventing, they'll need other factories to make those parts. Apple doesn't have any of those either, and again that's a massive employment and building effort -- Foxconn isn't going to shift direction, let's put it that way.
Why not? They and many other manufacturing partners have many times. Shall we revisit the well-tread story of Corning making glass for the first iPhone?
There are already contract car manufacturers that Apple could partner with. Magna is one that actually offers "Complete Vehicle Manufacturing":
Yeah, the vehicle in the MT picture is pretty heinous. It's like a chubby sized Apple Magic Mouse with wheels. You probably have to lay it over on its side to recharge it because they put the recharging port on the bottom.
I'm convinced whoever created it understands no aspect of design, not automotive, not Apple, not building given the background.
tht: I completely agree with your assessment. Huberty is correct that this goes way beyond the infotainment system of CarPlay and that Apple needs more control (or at least sensors) of other parts of a car, but there is a near-zero chance of Apple producing its own vehicle, since they would have had to have started building assembly factories about six-to-eight years ago. I don't think Apple has any interest in producing and servicing "car parts," but I think they are developing a system of greater control over a vehicle that they will offer and license to other car makers.
Absolutely no chance of that happening. No competing automaker in their right mind would cede system control to Apple. It would be like Bill Gates offering IBM an OS for their new IBM PC. That kind of dumb only happens once.
Yeah, that has NEVER happened.
In return for five years of exclusivity, roughly 10 percent of iPhone sales in AT&T stores, and a thin slice of Apple's iTunes revenue, AT&T had granted Jobs unprecedented power. He had cajoled AT&T into spending millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours to create a new feature, so-called visual voicemail, and to reinvent the time-consuming in-store sign-up process. He'd also wrangled a unique revenue-sharing arrangement, garnering roughly $10 a month from every iPhone customer's AT&T bill. On top of all that, Apple retained complete control over the design, manufacturing, and marketing of the iPhone. Jobs had done the unthinkable: squeezed a good deal out of one of the largest players in the entrenched wireless industry.
So CarPlay (which completely takes over the infotainment system) doesn't exist. That's funny, it does in my vehicle ...
CarPlay is not system control, it's dashboard monitor for your iPhone.
Believe me I would love for Apple to take end-to-end control and produce a vehicle. But its clear that none of the commenters who imagine this have given any thought to what that actually takes. Have any of you been to a car assembly plant? Those take years to build, and years more to really get up to speed. Apple doesn't have any of those.
Apple doesn't "have" any assembly plants for their existing products, they're all owned and operated by manufacturing partners. If anyone would potentially upend how one thinks about what manufacturing a vehicle "actually takes" it would be Apple. Why are you assuming there's only one way to build a vehicle? They certainly aren't.
If Apple's going to design "all the parts," or even just the new parts they may be inventing, they'll need other factories to make those parts. Apple doesn't have any of those either, and again that's a massive employment and building effort -- Foxconn isn't going to shift direction, let's put it that way.
Why not? They and many other manufacturing partners have many times. Shall we revisit the well-tread story of Corning making glass for the first iPhone?
There are already contract car manufacturers that Apple could partner with. Magna is one that actually offers "Complete Vehicle Manufacturing":
Yup. And I would guarantee that people within Apple already have reams of information about potential new partners such as this as well as capabilities and potential capabilities of its existing partner network.
It's almost like this has been reported on before, it seems like only yesterday... **ripple crossfade**
It was also suggested that the design and technology behind "Project Titan" remain very much in flux, with Apple reportedly still considering using BMW's i3 as the basis for its project. Apple and BMW have held talksabout a potential partnership, though it's been said that the two parties are not close to an agreement. Apple is said to have been particularly impressed that BMW "abandoned traditional approaches to car making" in developing the i3. Apple's top brass apparently indicated they are interested in taking a similar, fresh approach to the automobile with their own initiative.
Which also had this nugget with regard to battery development, since people here were speculating they'd have to partner with Tesla for some reason:
The Titan team is alleged to involve several hundred workers, and Apple has been accused of illegally poaching high-ranking executives from A123, a battery maker whose technology has been applied in high-performance electric vehicles.
Point being whether or not they scaled back from the actual manufacturing side of things as was also reported later on with Mansfield coming back to refocus efforts on the autonomous/software/etc side of things, they've clearly been exploring this project in ways that you'd expect from Apple — ie. owning the full stack, developing technologies their own way, vetting partners to manufacture, so forth. So all the speculation here that they aren't going to do any of those things should this project come to fruition is, in a word, silly.
By the way AI, everyone is right about the Apple Car picture. Find another. It’s dated and not terribly inspiring. Maybe you could get an ArtCenter student to render something for AI for not much $$$. And then AI gets links and hits from all over because you’ve got the latest and greatest Apple Car concept.
Oddly enough, the reason they use it is because it’s an engagement goldmine. Every time the use it, half a dozen people complain about it.
If you want to stop them from using it, don’t comment on it.
Very early on there was a really attractive concept image of what an Apple Car would look like………but it seems forever now that everyone writing about the mystery car uses this horrific image. Imagine a head-on crash with virtually no front end as this image shows. If and when an actual car is released, it needs to put the fine Tesla designed cars to shame. But most importantly it needs to be THE FULLY AUTONOMOUS CAR the world's been waiting for.
Well....it’s gonna be a longggggg wait. By that time Tesla would be logging miles and miles of robo taxis and autonomous vehicles, my 1 cent hehe
Right, Apple always late to the game... and then they wind up dominating the market, my 1 cent hehe
Except, in this case, they will be going up against a modern day Steve Jobs.
I'm not sure this analyst knows what "Vertically Integrated" means:
At least traditionally it has meant being in control of all phases of the production of a product.
For example, in the case of a steel company it meant mining your own ore, transporting it using your own shipping company, making coke and iron ore in your own furnaces, etc...
Even for cars, Ford at one time produced their own steel in their own steel mills.
So, is this analyst suggesting that Apple will produce its own batteries or steel?
It sounds like, instead she simply means they will assemble the whole car and, knowing Apple, they will be using a host of feeder companies, likely global, for the parts & pieces.
I interpret “vertically integrated” to mean that Apple will design everything down to the nuts and bolts. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that Apple would license Tesla battery technology, although the form factor would be of Apple design.
That's an interesting perspective -- and it shows how far we have fallen as an industrial giant.
Vertically integrated used to mean (quite literally) making something from the ground up -- from mining the ore for the steel to selling a finished automobile to a happy customer where every phase of production was done by and controlled by the single company (in this example by Henry Ford)
Today, it means, by your definition (and likely by the analyst's), simply designing the complete product.
tht: I completely agree with your assessment. Huberty is correct that this goes way beyond the infotainment system of CarPlay and that Apple needs more control (or at least sensors) of other parts of a car, but there is a near-zero chance of Apple producing its own vehicle, since they would have had to have started building assembly factories about six-to-eight years ago. I don't think Apple has any interest in producing and servicing "car parts," but I think they are developing a system of greater control over a vehicle that they will offer and license to other car makers.
Absolutely no chance of that happening. No competing automaker in their right mind would cede system control to Apple. It would be like Bill Gates offering IBM an OS for their new IBM PC. That kind of dumb only happens once.
Yeah, that has NEVER happened.
In return for five years of exclusivity, roughly 10 percent of iPhone sales in AT&T stores, and a thin slice of Apple's iTunes revenue, AT&T had granted Jobs unprecedented power. He had cajoled AT&T into spending millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours to create a new feature, so-called visual voicemail, and to reinvent the time-consuming in-store sign-up process. He'd also wrangled a unique revenue-sharing arrangement, garnering roughly $10 a month from every iPhone customer's AT&T bill. On top of all that, Apple retained complete control over the design, manufacturing, and marketing of the iPhone. Jobs had done the unthinkable: squeezed a good deal out of one of the largest players in the entrenched wireless industry.
tht: I completely agree with your assessment. Huberty is correct that this goes way beyond the infotainment system of CarPlay and that Apple needs more control (or at least sensors) of other parts of a car, but there is a near-zero chance of Apple producing its own vehicle, since they would have had to have started building assembly factories about six-to-eight years ago. I don't think Apple has any interest in producing and servicing "car parts," but I think they are developing a system of greater control over a vehicle that they will offer and license to other car makers.
Absolutely no chance of that happening. No competing automaker in their right mind would cede system control to Apple. It would be like Bill Gates offering IBM an OS for their new IBM PC. That kind of dumb only happens once.
Yeah, that has NEVER happened.
In return for five years of exclusivity, roughly 10 percent of iPhone sales in AT&T stores, and a thin slice of Apple's iTunes revenue, AT&T had granted Jobs unprecedented power. He had cajoled AT&T into spending millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours to create a new feature, so-called visual voicemail, and to reinvent the time-consuming in-store sign-up process. He'd also wrangled a unique revenue-sharing arrangement, garnering roughly $10 a month from every iPhone customer's AT&T bill. On top of all that, Apple retained complete control over the design, manufacturing, and marketing of the iPhone. Jobs had done the unthinkable: squeezed a good deal out of one of the largest players in the entrenched wireless industry.
Yeah but AT&T wasn't a competitor; this was a symbiotic relationship that made them both a lot of money, even if Jobs got a lot out of them.
Which car manufacturer does Apple compete with?
What? None, yet. They're all invested in their own systems; if Apple joins the fray then they become a competitor whether the system is adopted by their own vehicles (this) or licensed to other manufacturers (not happening).
Comments
Thankfully, the people working on this technology aren't so myopic.
“PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”
Yeah, that has NEVER happened.
https://www.wired.com/2008/01/ff-iphone/"Magna currently holds contracts to produce vehicles for BMW, Daimler, Jaguar Land Rover and Toyota"
Yup. And I would guarantee that people within Apple already have reams of information about potential new partners such as this as well as capabilities and potential capabilities of its existing partner network.
It's almost like this has been reported on before, it seems like only yesterday... **ripple crossfade**
https://appleinsider.com/articles/15/09/15/apples-project-titan-car-faces-manufacturing-roadblocks-could-necessitate-partnership
https://appleinsider.com/articles/15/07/31/bmw-concerned-about-sharing-manufacturing-expertise-to-develop-apple-car---report
Which also had this nugget with regard to battery development, since people here were speculating they'd have to partner with Tesla for some reason:
Point being whether or not they scaled back from the actual manufacturing side of things as was also reported later on with Mansfield coming back to refocus efforts on the autonomous/software/etc side of things, they've clearly been exploring this project in ways that you'd expect from Apple — ie. owning the full stack, developing technologies their own way, vetting partners to manufacture, so forth. So all the speculation here that they aren't going to do any of those things should this project come to fruition is, in a word, silly.
Except, in this case, they will be going up against a modern day Steve Jobs.
Which car manufacturer does Apple compete with?