'Apple Car' partnership in 2022 to set stage for 2025 launch, analyst says

AppleInsider

Apple is likely to announce a strategic electric vehicle partnership in 2022 to lay the groundwork for an "Apple Car" release in 2025, according to investment bank Wedbush.

Credit: Apple

In a note to investors seen by AppleInsider, Wedbush lead analyst Daniel Ives offers some color on recent reports of Apple accelerating its autonomous vehicle development. Ives says the report is "very in line with our thoughts."

According to the analyst, Wedbush continues to believe that it's a matter of when -- and not if -- Apple releases a self-driving car. Ives adds that the company's entry into the auto market could add $30 per share of total addressable market to Apple's growth story.

On the timeline, Ives believes there's a 60% to 65% chance that Apple will unveil its own standalone vehicle by 2025.

"Over the last seven years we have seen many twists and turns in Apple's automotive ambitions," Ives writes. "Project Titan as its been known within the halls of Cupertino has ultimately been significantly scaled down from its initial ramp a few years ago and now appears to be front and center again on the radar screen discussing a 2025 Apple Car unveil."

The analyst continues to believe that Apple will announce some type of strategic EV partnership in 2022, since such a collaboration will be "the first step" for the Cupertino juggernaut.

"We would rather see Apple partner on the EV path, than start building its own vehicles/factories given the margin and financial model implications down the road, coupled with the strategic product risk around such a gargantuan endeavor," Ives writes.

Ives maintains his Apple price target of $185, which is based on a sum-of-the-parts valuation on the analysts 2022 estimates. That includes a 16x multiple on Services at $1.3 trillion and a 7x multiple on Apple's hardware business at $2.1 trillion.

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lkrupp

AAPL has moved past MSFT to regain the title of world’s most valuable company. So where’s the headline AppleInsider? When Microsoft passed Apple there was a big “Apple Dethroned” headlined article. 

So analysts are predicting the Apple Car will disrupt the auto industry? We’ll see, we’ll see I guess.

mike_galloway

lkrupp said:

AAPL has moved past MSFT to regain the title of world’s most valuable company. So where’s the headline AppleInsider? When Microsoft passed Apple there was a big “Apple Dethroned” headlined article. 

So analysts are predicting the Apple Car will disrupt the auto industry? We’ll see, we’ll see I guess.

Be kind - journalists are probably scribbling as we sleep - sorry speak

dk49

And who's going to partner with Apple, given that basically every manufacturer Apple tried to reach denied them?

rezwits

dk49 said:

And who's going to partner with Apple, given that basically every manufacturer Apple tried to reach denied them?

Come on really? "basically every?" "almost every?" "essentially every?" or "every?"

Seems like there are some manufacturers out there then...

ericthehalfbee

dk49 said:

And who's going to partner with Apple, given that basically every manufacturer Apple tried to reach denied them?

Show me any official press releases stating this. Rumors don’t count.


That said, those suggesting Apple should buy Tesla are out to lunch. Tesla is nothing special. Apple should buy Lucid (if they don’t go big and buy someone like
VW).

dk49

rezwits said:

dk49 said:

And who's going to partner with Apple, given that basically every manufacturer Apple tried to reach denied them?

Come on really? "basically every?" "almost every?" "essentially every?" or "every?"

Seems like there are some manufacturers out there then...

Well, every. 

dk49

ericthehalfbee said:

dk49 said:

And who's going to partner with Apple, given that basically every manufacturer Apple tried to reach denied them?

Show me any official press releases stating this. Rumors don’t count.


That said, those suggesting Apple should buy Tesla are out to lunch. Tesla is nothing special. Apple should buy Lucid (if they don’t go big and buy someone like
VW).

You want an official press release regarding details of a project that itself doesn't have any official press release from the company? Amazing. 

robin huber

I do hope they partner with a U.S. firm. Enough of being at the mercy of China already. If they do have to go offshore, let it be Europe or Japan. 

welshdog

"Ives adds that the company's entry into the auto market could add $30 per share of total addressable market to Apple's growth story. "

And then will subtract $60 per share when some spectacular accident kills a bunch of people when the autonomous tech fails or misinterprets a traffic situation. The roll out of self-driving vehicles on large scale will be messy. Also, it will be 50 years before self-driving cars are ubiquitous. There is just too much still be be developed, deployed and changed for it to become the widespread norm. Note Waymo vehicles becoming confused by traffic cones and road construction sites. And left turns and puddles. This tech is not ready for prime time honestly and a lot of people are going to die from it.

robaba

Just give me a solid, compact, electric pickup, and that’s it.  If anything technology should help ME drive better/safer not try to drive while I goof off.  Monitor my driving and remind me when I might be driving recklessly or carelessly, so that I can better focus at the task at hand—driving the dam truck!

morky

ericthehalfbee said:

dk49 said:

And who's going to partner with Apple, given that basically every manufacturer Apple tried to reach denied them?

Show me any official press releases stating this. Rumors don’t count.


That said, those suggesting Apple should buy Tesla are out to lunch. Tesla is nothing special. Apple should buy Lucid (if they don’t go big and buy someone like
VW).

Telsa is one of the few companies Apple can't afford. Tesla is quite special which is why they are dominating the EV sector. Apple is capable of competing in this space and should build their own cars and especially batteries to drive innovation in manufacturing, but perhaps they can do that with a partner as well. Things are going to get worse for Tesla competitors before they get better. They are going to make the entire underbody of the Model Y in Berlin and Austin from three castings, and that's not even touching on the Tesla battery revolution we're about to see. These are fun tech times. Reminds me of the early 2000s when we were constantly blown away by what Apple was doing.

applezulu

welshdog said:

"Ives adds that the company's entry into the auto market could add $30 per share of total addressable market to Apple's growth story. "

And then will subtract $60 per share when some spectacular accident kills a bunch of people when the autonomous tech fails or misinterprets a traffic situation. The roll out of self-driving vehicles on large scale will be messy. Also, it will be 50 years before self-driving cars are ubiquitous. There is just too much still be be developed, deployed and changed for it to become the widespread norm. Note Waymo vehicles becoming confused by traffic cones and road construction sites. And left turns and puddles. This tech is not ready for prime time honestly and a lot of people are going to die from it.

Except autonomous cars share ‘experience’ with the manufacturer’s entire fleet, creating the capacity to ‘learn’ at a cumulative rate that is simply not possible for human drivers. Add to that a full deployment of low-latency 5G (and subsequent) communications  tech, and you’ll have cars that ‘see’ well beyond their immediate surroundings and coordinate movement with one another. 

This stuff is going to be ready for prime time a lot sooner than you think. One significant challenge will be getting people not to sensationalize individual accidents with injuries or fatalities in a double standard that ignores the vastly higher rate of injury and fatality accidents with human drivers. The comment above is a good indication of that challenge. 

Every year, millions of completely inexperienced new human drivers take to the road, half of whom are destined to be below average drivers for their entire lives. Every year, millions of older drivers lose their dexterity and acuity, half of whom were always below average drivers before getting worse. Between young and old, millions take to the road every day, tired or angry or drunk and/or distracted by radios, phones or passengers in the car with them. The result is a daily carnage of accidents with injuries and fatalities that are considered so routine, they rarely are mentioned in the news or even on social media. 

Contrast this with accidents involving autonomous vehicles. Those get reported and discussed ad nauseum, even when it’s really human error, as in Tesla drivers taking naps while using semi-autonomous modes that explicitly require drivers to remain attentive. Fatalities caused by sleepy drivers in regular cars? It happens. Any kind of incident caused by a sleeping Tesla driver? The robots are going to kill us all! 

Seriously, based on my own driving record and consequent insurance rates, it’s entirely possible that I am an ‘above average’ driver. Yet, there have been situations where I have been confused by traffic cones and construction sites, and left turns at weird intersections, and even puddles, where reflections on wet roads at night make spotting the lane markings difficult. Chances are, everyone reading this is thinking, ‘yeah, me, too.’ Yet how many who are relating to that read the comment above about Waymo vehicles having the same sort of challenges thought at that moment, “Stupid Waymo. That’s outrageous. The robots are going to kill us all!”

Apple is definitely going to need a strategy to respond to that. 

edited November 2021

qwerty52

welshdog said:

"Ives adds that the company's entry into the auto market could add $30 per share of total addressable market to Apple's growth story. "

And then will subtract $60 per share when some spectacular accident kills a bunch of people when the autonomous tech fails or misinterprets a traffic situation. The roll out of self-driving vehicles on large scale will be messy. Also, it will be 50 years before self-driving cars are ubiquitous. There is just too much still be be developed, deployed and changed for it to become the widespread norm. Note Waymo vehicles becoming confused by traffic cones and road construction sites. And left turns and puddles. This tech is not ready for prime time honestly and a lot of people are going to die from it.

I guess it'll be sooner than you think.

Only a little more than 100 years have passed since the discovery of the electricity and you can see how far we are today. So 50 years is too pessimistic for me........

As I've already written  somewhere: We don't know yet, what we don't know...........

planereflection

robaba said:

Just give me a solid, compact, electric pickup, and that’s it.  If anything technology should help ME drive better/safer not try to drive while I goof off.  Monitor my driving and remind me when I might be driving recklessly or carelessly, so that I can better focus at the task at hand—driving the dam truck!

Look up Canoo’s Pickup truck. It seems to check all your boxes.

Canoo Pickup unveil

https://youtu.be/sbBXMzaXDVM

Canoo ADAS

https://youtu.be/5FIViMSeigM [19:48]

Unlike most other EV startups showing vaporware renderings or single prototypes, they’ve built 20+ prototypes that have completed 500k+ miles in road testing and over 70+ physical crash tests and 12,000 simulated crash tests. 

palegolas

Whoever they partner with it’s gotta have capacity to scale up production significantly. So it probably couldn’t be a smaller startup. And probably a manufacturer with production facilities in multiple countries. Perhaps the new Subaru Toyota EV collab coalition thing. 🤷🏽‍♀️ 

temperor

Even if they could afford to buy Tesla they should stay far away from it … Tesla’s FSD efforts are just laughable. I have one and even standard AP is less effective than my 6 year old Audi. No 360 camera, no cross traffic alert / brake when you exit the driveway in reverse, Adaptive cruise control that goes so so when driving in direct sunlight or certain rain conditions … All item’s that work flawlessly on my 6 year old Audi. Oh and after 15 000 miles already front shaft replacement, they still can’t solve the issues with drivetrain in Model X and to a lesser degree in the model s … And when Elon barks that Apple needs to “open” up why in the hell is there no Apple CarPlay, oh I get it just you can pay your monthly subscription, to listen to music and get traffic info, all items I have on my iPhone … While indeed efficiency is probably the best in the industrie, the charging curve is just destroying that efficiency, all new cars in the market have way faster charging up to 80% battery capacity making them faster for road tripping (granted today the Tesla network is superior, but if they open up, and the alternative networks catch up that advantage will be gone soon) So Tesla, please implement most basic safety features other cars have for years, open up to Android Auto and CarPlay, make charging faster, at least up to 70%, and maybe just maybe I’ll keep my Model X.