Where are all the people who said Apple wasn't building a car but just a dashboard.
come on. admit you were wrong.
Apple "isn't building a car" though. All we have is speculation. It's far more likely that BMW is building 90% of the car, and 10% of it is Apple parts as OEM equipment instead of aftermarket conversion. Much like how the iMac is not that different from a Windows PC save for the operating system and a few forward-thinking parts standard instead of optional.
Like I could reasonably see Apple making changes to the battery and charging system to get exactly 5 days of life out of it (city use), though it's in Apple's best interests to either work with Tesla or license compatibility with the Supercharger stations otherwise they would need to roll out their own, and the last thing we need are incompatible charging stations. Forget SAE J1772 as anything but a home-charger standard. If you're on the road and want to drive your car from LA to NYC, you're not spending an entire day and a half (52 hours) every second day charging your car just to go 300 miles. 120V charging is a complete failure.
What sucks is the attitude of people who get sucked into believing they need a new car every 4 years.
That's because people think they need a new car when the warranty runs out. The entire reason for that belief comes the degradation of moving parts in the engine and transmission.
An electric car is not simply 4 motors attached to 4 wheels you know.
There's a lot more parts in a ICE driven car than an electric car.
I love driving. I'm not exactly all for self driving cars, and who knows if Apple's stab at the automobile will self-driving (I doubt it), but as I was dropping off one of my cars at the repair shop tonight, a cop pulled up behind us, and on the way home, it dawned on me. The greatest benefit self-driving cars will provide to society as I now see it, is not safety, is not efficiency, is not convenience, no, it's none of that. The greatest benefit will be that cops will have to find SOMETHING ELSE TO DO, other than pull people over for traffic violations. You know what I say? Bring it. Go fight real crime, piggies.
The main issue is that you still have to drive/operate them.
It seems trivial, but just ask those mothers that have to leave work early to pick up their kids from school.
That I agree with. Autonomous driving would be a god-send. I do not understand why it is so difficult, at least on motorways: all we'd need is cars that are equipped with cameras and sensors (already exist) that send these to a data centre in real-time to inform the Sat Navs in other cars on the same route of changing conditions. Heck, you can even use human inputs like Wayz does. The main requirement that does not already exist today, is that the government installs electronic tags, reflectors, whatever, on the motorways to provide machine readable delineations. Give how expensive it is to build a motorway, the additional costs of providing slightly better lines than paint cant be a deal-breaker.
So I wonder, why is the government not working with the car manufacturers?
Apple "isn't building a car" though. All we have is speculation. It's far more likely that BMW is building 90% of the car, and 10% of it is Apple parts as OEM equipment instead of aftermarket conversion. Much like how the iMac is not that different from a Windows PC save for the operating system and a few forward-thinking parts standard instead of optional.
Like I could reasonably see Apple making changes to the battery and charging system to get exactly 5 days of life out of it (city use), though it's in Apple's best interests to either work with Tesla or license compatibility with the Supercharger stations otherwise they would need to roll out their own, and the last thing we need are incompatible charging stations. Forget SAE J1772 as anything but a home-charger standard. If you're on the road and want to drive your car from LA to NYC, you're not spending an entire day and a half (52 hours) every second day charging your car just to go 300 miles. 120V charging is a complete failure.
That's because people think they need a new car when the warranty runs out. The entire reason for that belief comes the degradation of moving parts in the engine and transmission.
An electric car is not simply 4 motors attached to 4 wheels you know.
There's a lot more parts in a ICE driven car than an electric car.
Who drives from LA to NY?
Besides: Apple always wants you to charge their products overnight. It is one of their tricks so that you develop a "caring" relationship for your product. Low battery life is a feature, not a shortcoming. It means you are constantly worrying about "feeding" your beloved phone; and in the process, you develop a subconscious "love" for it.
That I agree with. Autonomous driving would be a god-send. I do not understand why it is so difficult, at least on motorways: all we'd need is cars that are equipped with cameras and sensors (already exist) that send these to a data centre in real-time to inform other cars on the same route (already exists: SatNavs) of changing conditions such as an accident. Heck, you can even use human interaction like Wayz does. The main requirement is that the government installs electronic tags, reflectors, whatever, on the motorways to provide machine readable delineations. Give how expensive it is to build a motorway, the additional costs of providing slightly better lines than paint cant be a deal-breaker.
So I wonder, why is the government not working with the car manufacturers?
Because wireless coverage doesn't exist outside of major cities? Have someone sit in the passenger seat while driving in Montana or South Dakota try and use Google or Apple maps.
Unless the standard feature is Apple buying Iridium and including it free on every Apple Car, that's a non-starter outside of the NYC and SFO. And even if Apple did that, it still wouldn't work up in Alaska or most of the far north anyway. (Everyone up there is used to getting screwed by "lower 48"-only tech.)
Because wireless coverage doesn't exist outside of major cities? Have someone sit in the passenger seat while driving in Montana or South Dakota try and use Google or Apple maps.
Unless the standard feature is Apple buying Iridium and including it free on every Apple Car, that's a non-starter outside of the NYC and SFO. And even if Apple did that, it still wouldn't work up in Alaska or most of the far north anyway. (Everyone up there is used to getting screwed by "lower 48"-only tech.)
Good point. But surely, motorways are close to 100% covered? That would have to be a given. But again, how expensive can it be to build this out, and it can be financed via a monthly usage charge to use autonomous driving.?
If one must drive a car, then there are plenty of good cars that people love that are already on the market. It's not like the smartphone market in 2007.
The problem with cars is that driving sucks for reasons that are external to the hardware itself. That is, there's the annoyance of dealing with traffic and the opportunity cost of your time, particularly for commuters. If you really want to make automobile transportation a better experience then you need to eliminate the need to drive.
One way to do that is with self-driving cars. Another way to do that is through services like Uber. Another is through traditional taxi services. Of those three, Uber is the best, but it's still not what I'd call a "great" transportation service experience.
I've been thinking that Apple's approach to cars would be to offer transportation as a service (like Uber), but with greater vertical integration (including designing their own cars) allowing for greater control over the experience. I had assumed this would necessitate self-driving cars but I guess that's not really true -- Apple could directly employ human drivers. Maybe that's what they'll do, at least for a while.
Mark my words, though -- Apple will not be selling cars to end-users in the way they sell Macs to end users. This is going to be a transportation service that you can access through your iPhone or Apple Watch.
no. the company is about transforming the personal. the company sells products first, services second.
If they are making a car, which I think is still uncertain, which categories of auto will they likely start out with?
According to Edmunds, they have 21 different categories.
The most popular cars worldwide are the typical family cars:
They don't have to cater to every demographic though. Even if they made just a single 4-door compact car model, they'd cater to over half of the worldwide market and a lot of the other segment is commercial vehicles. The grades of car inside the same size class like 'luxury' are down to quality. A Ford Focus is given a different class from a Tesla S/BMW 7/Audi A6 but those cars are all the same size class for the same buyer, they just have a different price tag.
Apple has described their existing products as mass-market luxury so I'd expect a car would follow the same pattern. The iPhone and iPad are considered the best quality in their class of devices and yet have mass-market sales volume.
Tesla is only aiming to sell 55000 units this year. Toyota, GM and VW sell about 10m each. I doubt Apple would aim to hit over 1 million units but imagine if they aimed for 1 million and had a $30b build cost. Even if they sold no units, they have 7x this amount in cash.
Apple can build 18x the amount Tesla can build with just 1/7th their cash balance.
I don't think a truck size is something Apple would want to promote but an MPV would be a sensible choice. I think 4 models would be enough:
- subcompact 2-door city car for singles/couples ~$20k e.g VW Polo, Ford Fiesta
- compact 4-door car for families ~$30k e.g Ford Focus
- MPV 4-door for families ~$40k e.g Ford Explorer
- Luxury more sporty 2 or 4-door vehicle for singles/couples ~$60-80k e.g design somewhere between a Tesla Roadster and Tesla S, not quite as large as a Fisker Karma
All the designs would be premium so they'd compete with entry models which undercut them on price with style and compete with luxury vehicles on price.
The big feature wouldn't be battery capacity but charging speed. The Porsche concept had charging to 80% of a 500km (310 miles) range in 15 minutes:
That would be suitable for any home. They could even have portable batteries that get charged in the home and you wheel them or carry them out to the car and plug them in to boost the charge by 100 miles each time. By the time Apple brings these to market, battery technology will have improved a bit, possibly 50%. They can also try the powdered Hydrogen cartridges for fuel and you'd buy replacement cartridges in normal retail stores.
Autonomous driving is something that will be in demand. Even if it gets relegated to special lanes like bus lanes, it brings down the cost of transportation services. If a taxi driver makes $25k per year and drives 30,000 miles, 30mpg with fuel costing $2.50/gallon = $2500 fuel costs, say $500 maintenance and $2000 vehicle depreciation, the company has to charge a minimum of $1 per mile to break even. Electric autonomous cars will immediately cut out the biggest expense, which is the driver's salary. Uber has said if Tesla made an automated vehicle that they'd buy every one of them. Tesla could run a business like that themselves.
You'd just open your smartphone, tap to get a car, possibly have a small charge upfront for the car getting to you so people don't mess with the system and then the nearest car would drive to you and you'd have in-car touch-screen controls to make it go where you wanted and the cost would be electricity, car depreciation, maintenance (lower than combustion vehicles). Prices could go as low as $0.50/mile, which can make it competitive with public transport. This could be something public transport services take on too and could use smaller vehicles with more stops.
Craig Federighi joked about Apple's move into cars at one of the recent events referring to it as the ?Ride.
Where are all the people who said Apple wasn't building a car but just a dashboard.
come on. admit you were wrong.
they won't sog. they won't.
it was always obvious to me the rumor was true. Apple has engineering skill and depth of expertise, others (including AI journalists) discount.
Steve Jobs said that Apple was about the intersection of technology and the humanities. I think that is an awkward construct & i would have said "the personal" over the humanities.
A phone, a watch, what's next? a car.
As anyone knows who takes a new car in for service, they are computers on wheels now. Take away the internal combustion engine & that makes the statement only more true.
They will only be competing with Tesla out of the gate & really only a single model, the "S" as the "X" is too expensive.
Go Apple, Go Apple. Show that glamour boy Musk what you are made of.
"Apple has no experience," [GM's Bob] Lutz said. "There's no reason to assume Apple will do a better job than General Motors, Ford, Volkswagen, Toyota or Hyundai. I think this is going to be a gigantic money pit."
Shades of Ed Colligan of Palm, 2006: "PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in."
Time to short GM stock for 2019.
Edit: this was said about electric cars. Notice Lutz didn't mention Telsa or BMW when he rattled off GM and other car companies that make electric cars.
"Apple has no experience," [GM's Bob] Lutz said. "There's no reason to assume Apple will do a better job than General Motors, Ford, Volkswagen, Toyota or Hyundai. I think this is going to be a gigantic money pit."
Shades of Ed Colligan of Palm, 2006: "PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in."
Time to short GM stock for 2019.
Edit: this was said about electric cars. Notice Lutz didn't mention Telsa or BMW when he rattled off GM and other car companies that make electric cars.
Lutz is a climate skeptic, pushed for the Volt, and unhappy with Washington regulating vehicle development instead of "giving the customer what they want". He speaks for the past automotive industry, not the future.
That's an automotive industry ripe for a disruption from Silicon Valley, which is one of the reason;s that Elon Musk decided to build Tesla, Google is pushing self driving cars, and Uber is changing urban transportation. Now Tesla may not be making any money yet, but for many years, neither was GM; most of their profits were from financing, at least before GM's untimely bankruptcy.
Apple has a steep climb to build an automobile, and make money at it, and maybe they won't be successful. But imagine that they will; what would that be like. Certainly not like the current automotive industry.
The reason that cops in the US conduct so much traffic and speeding checks and stop you (rather than just taking a picture when speeding) is to condition the population to be constantly in fear of the police. It is a means of psychological subjugation.
Right. Police rather not hand out tickets if they can get cameras to do it for them. Cops can't be everywhere at once while cameras could.
The ACLU is an opponent of speed/red light cameras.
(Not saying THIS report is true but) I called this last week.
Apple will most likely not offer an autonomous car day one. That's nuts. It's a lot safer to offer an electric vehicle with hundreds of sensors and compile all this data on a server back at the lab to better understand driving, mapping, roads, elevation and accidents etc.
I'd say after 2-10 years they'll have enough data to develop a near flawless vehicle. I'd say 2 years later at the LEAST. Then there's all the old farts in congress who would have to allow new laws and the outdated road tech currently in use(traffic lights, construction/light up/road signs, lanes) that may or may need updating.
So all the other car manufacturers will not be doing the same or are ALREADY collecting information with the current cars on the road? Apple will never make a flawless car because no one will ever be able to create that. Other car manufacturers already have all this in place, Apple is not going to be the one that magically changes it all.
I do get that: Tesla needed to raise capital and their debt to equity ratio was too high to borrow more. So, with
their stock price sky high, they decided to sell 2.7 million shares to the public. What better time to do it? They raised over $640 million. Note that the offering was underwritten by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank Securities, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo Securities. The offering was oversubscribed, so the original plan to sell 2.1 million shares was changed to 2.7 million. The dilution of shares was about 2%, so one might have expected the stock to decline. Instead, the price has gone from $242 at the offering on August 15 to $264 today.
So, after the offering:
Tesla has hundreds of millions of dollars to continue their expansion
Tesla's debt to equity ratio has been reduced
Tesla's stock price has appreciated
Several of the world's largest investment banks have continued their commitment to helping Tesla succeed
The reason that cops in the US conduct so much traffic and speeding checks and stop you (rather than just taking a picture when speeding) is to condition the population to be constantly in fear of the police. It is a means of psychological subjugation. [/QUOTE]
Lutz is a climate skeptic, pushed for the Volt, and unhappy with Washington regulating vehicle development instead of "giving the customer what they want". He speaks for the past automotive industry, not the future.
That's an automotive industry ripe for a disruption from Silicon Valley, which is one of the reason;s that Elon Musk decided to build Tesla, Google is pushing self driving cars, and Uber is changing urban transportation. Now Tesla may not be making any money yet, but for many years, neither was GM; most of their profits were from financing, at least before GM's untimely bankruptcy.
Apple has a steep climb to build an automobile, and make money at it, and maybe they won't be successful. But imagine that they will; what would that be like. Certainly not like the current automotive industry.
I agree GM has the most to lose to disruption. (Blackberry of the auto industry?)
And the self-driving car will add to the disruption. Make no mistake; more autonomous-like vehicles are coming, like it or not; many governments are pushing for legislation to make it all happen in the name of safety.
Nope. They are designing a car to sell to people. If services like Uber want to use them, Apple will be fine with it. But individuals who choose to buy a car from Apple will be able to do so. Nothing in Apple's history suggests they would deploy a business model that you suggest. They make products that they feel do great things and that people want.
Selling cars directly to individuals is an incredibly complex and expensive thing to do, particularly if you want to do it at the scale of existing players. Apple would need to build a large number of show rooms and repair facilities in the countries where they sell their car. Apple can afford to do that, of course, but making it profitable is the key, and Apple isn't entering this business to lose money. If you think people are going to order these cars off the Internet without a test drive you're nuts. People would expect a retail experience for their car that is on par with the retail experience they get with their other apple products and with other cars. Delivering that retail experience is possible, but very expensive -- probably not worth it.
Apple's history is one of innovation and adaptation -- of Thinking Different. Just because they've never done something before, that doesn't mean they won't do it in the future. Apple evaluates ideas based on their merit, not on whether they've ever done it before.
no. the company is about transforming the personal. the company sells products first, services second.
The personal products are the iPhone and the Apple Watch. Transportation is a service that is attached to those products.
You're thinking too small here. The problem of transportation is much bigger than just improving the OS in cars. The worst aspects of cars today are all the extra costs, work, and responsibilities that go with car ownership. You have to pay to store them, maintain them, and driving them is generally more of a pain than fun. If you have an open road and just want to enjoy driving there already exist many cars that are fun to drive. But if your focus is transportation rather than fahrvergnugen, the existing approach to ground transportation sucks, and it's a much bigger problem than the OS in your infotainment system.
I'm guessing that Apple is thinking much bigger than you realize. They're out to change ground transportation, not just sell another car with an easier to use infotainment system.
Comments
Apple "isn't building a car" though. All we have is speculation. It's far more likely that BMW is building 90% of the car, and 10% of it is Apple parts as OEM equipment instead of aftermarket conversion. Much like how the iMac is not that different from a Windows PC save for the operating system and a few forward-thinking parts standard instead of optional.
Like I could reasonably see Apple making changes to the battery and charging system to get exactly 5 days of life out of it (city use), though it's in Apple's best interests to either work with Tesla or license compatibility with the Supercharger stations otherwise they would need to roll out their own, and the last thing we need are incompatible charging stations. Forget SAE J1772 as anything but a home-charger standard. If you're on the road and want to drive your car from LA to NYC, you're not spending an entire day and a half (52 hours) every second day charging your car just to go 300 miles. 120V charging is a complete failure.
That's because people think they need a new car when the warranty runs out. The entire reason for that belief comes the degradation of moving parts in the engine and transmission.
An electric car is not simply 4 motors attached to 4 wheels you know.
There's a lot more parts in a ICE driven car than an electric car.
Shipping is a feature.
Yes. It looks like we are heading to a semi-autonomous Siri operated car, very much like the iconic Kitt car.
That would reduce revenue.
The main issue is that you still have to drive/operate them.
It seems trivial, but just ask those mothers that have to leave work early to pick up their kids from school.
That I agree with. Autonomous driving would be a god-send. I do not understand why it is so difficult, at least on motorways: all we'd need is cars that are equipped with cameras and sensors (already exist) that send these to a data centre in real-time to inform the Sat Navs in other cars on the same route of changing conditions. Heck, you can even use human inputs like Wayz does. The main requirement that does not already exist today, is that the government installs electronic tags, reflectors, whatever, on the motorways to provide machine readable delineations. Give how expensive it is to build a motorway, the additional costs of providing slightly better lines than paint cant be a deal-breaker.
So I wonder, why is the government not working with the car manufacturers?
Apple "isn't building a car" though. All we have is speculation. It's far more likely that BMW is building 90% of the car, and 10% of it is Apple parts as OEM equipment instead of aftermarket conversion. Much like how the iMac is not that different from a Windows PC save for the operating system and a few forward-thinking parts standard instead of optional.
Like I could reasonably see Apple making changes to the battery and charging system to get exactly 5 days of life out of it (city use), though it's in Apple's best interests to either work with Tesla or license compatibility with the Supercharger stations otherwise they would need to roll out their own, and the last thing we need are incompatible charging stations. Forget SAE J1772 as anything but a home-charger standard. If you're on the road and want to drive your car from LA to NYC, you're not spending an entire day and a half (52 hours) every second day charging your car just to go 300 miles. 120V charging is a complete failure.
That's because people think they need a new car when the warranty runs out. The entire reason for that belief comes the degradation of moving parts in the engine and transmission.
An electric car is not simply 4 motors attached to 4 wheels you know.
There's a lot more parts in a ICE driven car than an electric car.
Who drives from LA to NY?
Besides: Apple always wants you to charge their products overnight. It is one of their tricks so that you develop a "caring" relationship for your product. Low battery life is a feature, not a shortcoming. It means you are constantly worrying about "feeding" your beloved phone; and in the process, you develop a subconscious "love" for it.
Because wireless coverage doesn't exist outside of major cities? Have someone sit in the passenger seat while driving in Montana or South Dakota try and use Google or Apple maps.
Unless the standard feature is Apple buying Iridium and including it free on every Apple Car, that's a non-starter outside of the NYC and SFO. And even if Apple did that, it still wouldn't work up in Alaska or most of the far north anyway. (Everyone up there is used to getting screwed by "lower 48"-only tech.)
Because wireless coverage doesn't exist outside of major cities? Have someone sit in the passenger seat while driving in Montana or South Dakota try and use Google or Apple maps.
Unless the standard feature is Apple buying Iridium and including it free on every Apple Car, that's a non-starter outside of the NYC and SFO. And even if Apple did that, it still wouldn't work up in Alaska or most of the far north anyway. (Everyone up there is used to getting screwed by "lower 48"-only tech.)
Good point. But surely, motorways are close to 100% covered? That would have to be a given. But again, how expensive can it be to build this out, and it can be financed via a monthly usage charge to use autonomous driving.?
no. the company is about transforming the personal. the company sells products first, services second.
The most popular cars worldwide are the typical family cars:
http://www.statista.com/statistics/239229/most-sold-car-models-worldwide/
Asia is the biggest market too:
http://www.statista.com/statistics/200005/international-car-sales-by-region-since-1990/
http://www.oica.net/category/production-statistics/2014-statistics/
The Ford Focus is the most popular there. In Germany, it's the VW Golf, Passat and Polo. In the US, pickup trucks are popular:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2015/01/07/americas-best-selling-vehicles-in-2014-infographic/
http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-auto-sales/
http://www.statista.com/statistics/199981/us-car-and-truck-sales-since-1951/
This includes the MPV category ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minivan ). The Camry is quite high there, maybe Jeff Williams is onto something.
They don't have to cater to every demographic though. Even if they made just a single 4-door compact car model, they'd cater to over half of the worldwide market and a lot of the other segment is commercial vehicles. The grades of car inside the same size class like 'luxury' are down to quality. A Ford Focus is given a different class from a Tesla S/BMW 7/Audi A6 but those cars are all the same size class for the same buyer, they just have a different price tag.
Apple has described their existing products as mass-market luxury so I'd expect a car would follow the same pattern. The iPhone and iPad are considered the best quality in their class of devices and yet have mass-market sales volume.
Tesla is only aiming to sell 55000 units this year. Toyota, GM and VW sell about 10m each. I doubt Apple would aim to hit over 1 million units but imagine if they aimed for 1 million and had a $30b build cost. Even if they sold no units, they have 7x this amount in cash.
Apple can build 18x the amount Tesla can build with just 1/7th their cash balance.
I don't think a truck size is something Apple would want to promote but an MPV would be a sensible choice. I think 4 models would be enough:
- subcompact 2-door city car for singles/couples ~$20k e.g VW Polo, Ford Fiesta
- compact 4-door car for families ~$30k e.g Ford Focus
- MPV 4-door for families ~$40k e.g Ford Explorer
- Luxury more sporty 2 or 4-door vehicle for singles/couples ~$60-80k e.g design somewhere between a Tesla Roadster and Tesla S, not quite as large as a Fisker Karma
All the designs would be premium so they'd compete with entry models which undercut them on price with style and compete with luxury vehicles on price.
The big feature wouldn't be battery capacity but charging speed. The Porsche concept had charging to 80% of a 500km (310 miles) range in 15 minutes:
http://www.popsci.com/porsche-mission-e-might-be-concept-but-its-innovative-ev-technology-is-real
That would be suitable for any home. They could even have portable batteries that get charged in the home and you wheel them or carry them out to the car and plug them in to boost the charge by 100 miles each time. By the time Apple brings these to market, battery technology will have improved a bit, possibly 50%. They can also try the powdered Hydrogen cartridges for fuel and you'd buy replacement cartridges in normal retail stores.
Autonomous driving is something that will be in demand. Even if it gets relegated to special lanes like bus lanes, it brings down the cost of transportation services. If a taxi driver makes $25k per year and drives 30,000 miles, 30mpg with fuel costing $2.50/gallon = $2500 fuel costs, say $500 maintenance and $2000 vehicle depreciation, the company has to charge a minimum of $1 per mile to break even. Electric autonomous cars will immediately cut out the biggest expense, which is the driver's salary. Uber has said if Tesla made an automated vehicle that they'd buy every one of them. Tesla could run a business like that themselves.
You'd just open your smartphone, tap to get a car, possibly have a small charge upfront for the car getting to you so people don't mess with the system and then the nearest car would drive to you and you'd have in-car touch-screen controls to make it go where you wanted and the cost would be electricity, car depreciation, maintenance (lower than combustion vehicles). Prices could go as low as $0.50/mile, which can make it competitive with public transport. This could be something public transport services take on too and could use smaller vehicles with more stops.
Craig Federighi joked about Apple's move into cars at one of the recent events referring to it as the ?Ride.
they won't sog. they won't.
it was always obvious to me the rumor was true. Apple has engineering skill and depth of expertise, others (including AI journalists) discount.
Steve Jobs said that Apple was about the intersection of technology and the humanities. I think that is an awkward construct & i would have said "the personal" over the humanities.
A phone, a watch, what's next? a car.
As anyone knows who takes a new car in for service, they are computers on wheels now. Take away the internal combustion engine & that makes the statement only more true.
They will only be competing with Tesla out of the gate & really only a single model, the "S" as the "X" is too expensive.
Go Apple, Go Apple. Show that glamour boy Musk what you are made of.
Oh no, not again...
"Apple has no experience," [GM's Bob] Lutz said. "There's no reason to assume Apple will do a better job than General Motors, Ford, Volkswagen, Toyota or Hyundai. I think this is going to be a gigantic money pit."
http://fortune.com/2015/09/22/apple-gm-money-pit/?xid=yahoo_fortune
Shades of Ed Colligan of Palm, 2006: "PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in."
Time to short GM stock for 2019.
Edit: this was said about electric cars. Notice Lutz didn't mention Telsa or BMW when he rattled off GM and other car companies that make electric cars.
Oh no, not again...
"Apple has no experience," [GM's Bob] Lutz said. "There's no reason to assume Apple will do a better job than General Motors, Ford, Volkswagen, Toyota or Hyundai. I think this is going to be a gigantic money pit."
http://fortune.com/2015/09/22/apple-gm-money-pit/?xid=yahoo_fortune
Shades of Ed Colligan of Palm, 2006: "PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in."
Time to short GM stock for 2019.
Edit: this was said about electric cars. Notice Lutz didn't mention Telsa or BMW when he rattled off GM and other car companies that make electric cars.
Lutz is a climate skeptic, pushed for the Volt, and unhappy with Washington regulating vehicle development instead of "giving the customer what they want". He speaks for the past automotive industry, not the future.
That's an automotive industry ripe for a disruption from Silicon Valley, which is one of the reason;s that Elon Musk decided to build Tesla, Google is pushing self driving cars, and Uber is changing urban transportation. Now Tesla may not be making any money yet, but for many years, neither was GM; most of their profits were from financing, at least before GM's untimely bankruptcy.
Apple has a steep climb to build an automobile, and make money at it, and maybe they won't be successful. But imagine that they will; what would that be like. Certainly not like the current automotive industry.
Right. Police rather not hand out tickets if they can get cameras to do it for them. Cops can't be everywhere at once while cameras could.
The ACLU is an opponent of speed/red light cameras.
So all the other car manufacturers will not be doing the same or are ALREADY collecting information with the current cars on the road? Apple will never make a flawless car because no one will ever be able to create that. Other car manufacturers already have all this in place, Apple is not going to be the one that magically changes it all.
Sog hates Tesla for some reason.
The reason that cops in the US conduct so much traffic and speeding checks and stop you (rather than just taking a picture when speeding) is to condition the population to be constantly in fear of the police. It is a means of psychological subjugation.
[/QUOTE]
Agree completely. And it works. Guess they're going to have figure out a new way to do that. I'm sure the [URL=http://psipunk.com/crab-police-robot-by-jamie-martin/]police robots[/URL] are not far behind the self driving cars.
EDIT: I know it's a concept rendering and not real… jic
Lutz is a climate skeptic, pushed for the Volt, and unhappy with Washington regulating vehicle development instead of "giving the customer what they want". He speaks for the past automotive industry, not the future.
That's an automotive industry ripe for a disruption from Silicon Valley, which is one of the reason;s that Elon Musk decided to build Tesla, Google is pushing self driving cars, and Uber is changing urban transportation. Now Tesla may not be making any money yet, but for many years, neither was GM; most of their profits were from financing, at least before GM's untimely bankruptcy.
Apple has a steep climb to build an automobile, and make money at it, and maybe they won't be successful. But imagine that they will; what would that be like. Certainly not like the current automotive industry.
I agree GM has the most to lose to disruption. (Blackberry of the auto industry?)
And the self-driving car will add to the disruption. Make no mistake; more autonomous-like vehicles are coming, like it or not; many governments are pushing for legislation to make it all happen in the name of safety.
Nope. They are designing a car to sell to people. If services like Uber want to use them, Apple will be fine with it. But individuals who choose to buy a car from Apple will be able to do so. Nothing in Apple's history suggests they would deploy a business model that you suggest. They make products that they feel do great things and that people want.
Selling cars directly to individuals is an incredibly complex and expensive thing to do, particularly if you want to do it at the scale of existing players. Apple would need to build a large number of show rooms and repair facilities in the countries where they sell their car. Apple can afford to do that, of course, but making it profitable is the key, and Apple isn't entering this business to lose money. If you think people are going to order these cars off the Internet without a test drive you're nuts. People would expect a retail experience for their car that is on par with the retail experience they get with their other apple products and with other cars. Delivering that retail experience is possible, but very expensive -- probably not worth it.
Apple's history is one of innovation and adaptation -- of Thinking Different. Just because they've never done something before, that doesn't mean they won't do it in the future. Apple evaluates ideas based on their merit, not on whether they've ever done it before.
Right. Police rather not hand out tickets if they can get cameras to do it for them. Cops can't be everywhere at once while cameras could.
The ACLU is an opponent of speed/red light cameras.
Ya. Because Americans are so concerned about privacy..... /s
no. the company is about transforming the personal. the company sells products first, services second.
The personal products are the iPhone and the Apple Watch. Transportation is a service that is attached to those products.
You're thinking too small here. The problem of transportation is much bigger than just improving the OS in cars. The worst aspects of cars today are all the extra costs, work, and responsibilities that go with car ownership. You have to pay to store them, maintain them, and driving them is generally more of a pain than fun. If you have an open road and just want to enjoy driving there already exist many cars that are fun to drive. But if your focus is transportation rather than fahrvergnugen, the existing approach to ground transportation sucks, and it's a much bigger problem than the OS in your infotainment system.
I'm guessing that Apple is thinking much bigger than you realize. They're out to change ground transportation, not just sell another car with an easier to use infotainment system.