Apple Car is delayed -- again
Apple has changed its strategy to develop an electric vehicle and aims for a more basic EV with limited features designed to compete with currently available Tesla models.
Apple Car won't make an appearance until 2028 -- or later
The company had previously planned a fully autonomous vehicle but has now opted for a less ambitious design. The new plan for the car involves a Level 2+ system that offers limited autonomous features, such as lane centering and adaptive cruise control.
This is a significant change from the previous plan, which included Level 4 automation, allowing the car to be driven autonomously under specific circumstances, such as a local driverless taxi.
Originally aimed for a 2026 release with advanced self-driving capabilities, Apple has now adjusted its approach to focus on more basic driver-assistance features.
According to Bloomberg the latest adjustments have impacted the release timeline, pushing it to 2028 at the earliest, approximately two years later than previously projected.
Apple's car project, codenamed Titan and T172, has been a tumultuous journey since 2014. The project has faced leadership changes, strategic shifts, hiring freezes, layoffs, and delays.
Internally, this shift is considered a pivotal moment, where Apple must either deliver the product with reduced expectations or reconsider the project's existence altogether. The company has engaged in discussions with potential European manufacturing partners to implement the new strategy, with plans to release an upgraded system supporting Level 4 autonomy post the initial launch.
After prolonged discussions involving Apple's board, project head Kevin Lynch, and CEO Tim Cook, it was decided to reduce the scale of the project. The car project has been a significant investment for Apple, with hundreds of millions of dollars spent annually on research and development, including powertrains, self-driving hardware and software, and vehicle components.
If the project is yet again delayed, this projection is in line with a recent prediction from Ming-Chi Kuo in late September. According to the analyst, he had "lost all visibility" on the project and had doubts "that the Apple Car could go into mass production within the next few years."
After Kuo's March prediction of a dissolved Apple Car team, Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives asserted that it was a matter of "when, not if" the product would arrive, and he expected it by 2026.
For a decade, the Apple Car project has always seemed three years away, yet inevitable at the same time, making it unclear whose predictions about the product are correct.
Rumor Score: Likely
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
The best Apple can hope for is to partner (note Apple doesn't do this well) with existing transportation companies to embed CarPlay (or some iteration of that) in the hopes of expanding the Apple ecosystem. This is even a stretch as this erodes the transportation company's marketing. But folks don't want to learn new systems and would prefer to stay within an Apple (or Google or ???) standardized platform.
My Porsche software is a mess and I would pay to have an Apple Car platform if it were available as an example.
I'm super excited about Apple's VisionPro as I see this as an exciting new platform which Apple can build out into many new markets and experiences. But for companies the size of Apple, these opportunities to scale are few and far between.
And the value chain for EVs are going to be charging infrastructure and service infrastructure. The car itself is somewhere in 3rd or 4th on the priority list. And automated driving would be 5th or 6th at best. They bought into the self driving bubble in the 2015 time frame and wasted a lot of resources.
Cook is a replicator, not a creator. Let alone a visionary. He’s good at driving prices up while milking Steve’s heritage, sadly…
1. Apple can build a modem. But why should they? It would provide no benefit at all over cheaper products available from other companies. There is a list of products that Apple should make - general purpose monitor, smart TV, printer, home audio, home security - but generic stuff like networking and storage equipment aren't among them.
2. Siri is a mess ... when compared to Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Samsung Bixby? The former two are losing BILLIONS for their owners and the latter is an embarrassment.
3. All right maybe this is legitimate.
4. In isolation? Sure. In comparison with software provided by literally everybody else? Not a chance.
5. They sold 46 million of them in 2023 which was a down year. Creative professionals love it and thanks to Apple Arcade it is actually getting traction with serious gaming. The only real threat to the iPad on the horizon is the possibility that Windows tablets are going to take off once Intel reaches 5nm this year: https://liliputing.com/onexplayer-x1-gaming-tablet-with-detachable-controllers-and-intel-meteor-lake-launches-in-china-global-launch-coming-soon. And if you are one of those people who keeps insisting that iPads should have beaten Windows laptops by now ... well let's just say that you aren't someone who actually uses Windows and leave it at that. That was never going to happen, especially considering that an iPad Pro actually costs as much as an entry level productivity or gaming Windows laptop and that is without the Magic keyboard and trackpad.
6. My prediction is that 5 years from now the Vision Pro is going to be radically different from the dev kit that they are pushing now. If you were to listen to what Apple's management has been saying about AR and VR the past 3 years you would understand why I think this way. The final version of the Vision Pro is going to be a lot closer to Google Glass - except actually good this time - than the face huggers from Aliens.
So you are 1 for 6. Aim for a better ratio next time.
Go nosh on it....
It sounds like they're lowering the bar across the board on what a smart car in 2028 should be and that makes it hard to believe.
Anything is possible and the 5G modem fiasco (strategically and technically) is proof of that but this idea was hatched at Apple years ago now. It wasn't lumped on them in a 'Yikes!' moment like the 5G modem was.
It is true that they've never confirmed an Apple car plan exists but there is enough evidence out there to say a major car effort is underway. The only question is what type of effort.
At the moment I think things aren't as bad as they read.
Foxconn however, appears to have no desire to build their own branded cars, prefers to be a merchant manufacturer and is just beginning to build their infrastructure. That's actually a very interesting tact to go with. With EVs, it frees vehicles and vehicle designs to break out of current industry norms, and in such a new world, more flexible manufacturing plants are needed. A merchant manufacturer would have plants that are more agile.
Like with computer chip manufacturers in the past, where many of them owned their own foundries only to abandon them and go fabless, being a merchant vehicle manufacturer in an EV world is going to be interesting. Will be interesting if more and more car brands go fabless and hire merchant manufacturers.
It’s a sign of the demented world in which we live that Apple is in effect reprimanded, yet again, for delaying a product whose existence they have never acknowledged and whose release date therefore is non-existent.
Recall that GM famously claimed they would stop making their cars CarPlay compatible, and the derision that greeted that announcement. People *want* to bring their phones to the car; and they *want* quality that a longtime tech manufacturer can bring in their cars. The idea that GM (or other car company) can do better is absurd. I've seen the Tesla version of this, and it is mediocre at best. Is CarPlay perfect? No. But it is what I asked for when I shopped cars. And when I rent them.
A company like Apple brings much to the table. Car companies can get out of the infotainment system and the necessary tech support that can be required for decades.
Done correctly, imagine an Apple Car on board electronic system being available in a rental car fleet. Nothing is more annoying than arriving at a destination airport and having to stand in a line to pick up a rental car. Sure, there are alternatives, and none of them insanely great. Imagine an Apple Car "rental services" division.