Daimler CEO says Apple, other Silicon Valley firms 'can do more' than anticipated in cars
Silicon Valley tech companies are doing better than anticipated in the automotive realm, said Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche after he and other company executives concluded talks with dozens of firms in the region.
Tesla's Model S, which already has some self-piloting functions.
"Our impression was that these companies can do more and know more than we had previously assumed. At the same time they have more respect for our achievements than we thought," Zetsche told Germany's Welt am Sonntag, according to Reuters. The Daimler team met with roughly 70 companies in all.
"There were concrete talks. I will not say anything about the content," Zetsche continued. "It was not just about the fact that there is an innovative spirit in the Valley. We know that already. We wanted to see what drives it, and all the things that can be created from it."
Though the CEO didn't mention any of the visited companies by name, one of them may have been Apple. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has referred to Apple's electric car project as an "open secret," and while Apple is unlikely to have divulged many details, in the case of a company like Daimler it could be willing to acknowledge its interest or discuss potential partnerships.
Apple, Google, Tesla, and several traditional carmakers are all believed to be working on self-driving cars, though the first consumer models are likely several years away. Apple's for instance may not hit roads until 2019 or 2020, and even then the company may or may not decide to leave self-driving systems for later.
Tesla's Model S, which already has some self-piloting functions.
"Our impression was that these companies can do more and know more than we had previously assumed. At the same time they have more respect for our achievements than we thought," Zetsche told Germany's Welt am Sonntag, according to Reuters. The Daimler team met with roughly 70 companies in all.
"There were concrete talks. I will not say anything about the content," Zetsche continued. "It was not just about the fact that there is an innovative spirit in the Valley. We know that already. We wanted to see what drives it, and all the things that can be created from it."
Though the CEO didn't mention any of the visited companies by name, one of them may have been Apple. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has referred to Apple's electric car project as an "open secret," and while Apple is unlikely to have divulged many details, in the case of a company like Daimler it could be willing to acknowledge its interest or discuss potential partnerships.
Apple, Google, Tesla, and several traditional carmakers are all believed to be working on self-driving cars, though the first consumer models are likely several years away. Apple's for instance may not hit roads until 2019 or 2020, and even then the company may or may not decide to leave self-driving systems for later.
Comments
Mercedes-Benz' S-class models have been slowly gaining self-driving capabilities for decades. Recent models can do automatic lane changes, automatic overtaking, automatic traffic signal recognition, everything. For liability reasons, they require the driver's hands on the wheel, even when the wheel is moving itself. They have managed fully-automated trips on the Autobahn. There was also a notable fully-automated tour in 1995 from Munich to Copenhagen and back.
I think it is very unlikely that self-driving cars will be controlled by any kind of central computer. That just wouldn't be a good idea for a huge number of reasons.
[really... the first rule of defensive driving in Minnesota is figuring out how good the driver is in front of you, and factoring that into a chaos theory equation combining newton's laws of motion, and current the coefficient of friction.
Oh, wait....
Cars driven with this, will be 100 times safer than our current cars even if they don't communicate with other cars.
Communicating with other cars give them info beyond their sensor range, or even before sensors can catch it.
If a car decides to change direction, it could sent that info to other cars at the same time it implements it in its own system, the other car's sensors would be looking out for it, focusing more on that car (a bit like putting on blinkers), making cars around even safer.
Giving up some control for convenience is something people do every day; nothing sinister about it, unless you think government and corporations are "evil". I know some people think that..
Apple isn't going to manufacture/assemble a self driving car, they are going to develop self driving technology and make it available to car manufacturers.
Name a computer manufacturer that manufactures all the elements of their computer. There aren't any. The closest is Apple, only because it develops the OS that goes into its computers. All other components of a computer come from third party manufacturers.
Better that Apple supply the auto industry, than compete with them.
As a retired police officer I can safely state that 99.99% of all traffic collisions are caused by human error. Eliminate the human and driving just became safer by several orders of magnitude.