Ex-Apple director Lattner striving to make cars an 'appliance' at Tesla
Now heading up Autopilot development at Tesla, former Apple director Chris Lattner says that he's hoping to "accelerate the path to cars being appliances that solve people's problems," rather than machines that require constant maintenance.
"Cars are really important. But I'm what I consider to be an 'un-car person', Lattner said on a recent episode of the Accidental Tech Podcast. "I'm personally not the kind of guy who loves doing oil changes and fiddling around with them. I just want something that is reliable, that works, ideally drives me everywhere I want to go, and I don't have to think about it.
"It's solving my problems, it's not something I have to care for, feed and maintain. That's the way I look at cars," he continued.
Lattner noted that he hadn't considered working for a car company before, but simply because he didn't think he had relevant skills. Autopilot, however, is Tesla's self-driving platform, highly dependent on software as much as hardware. A limited version of the technology is already present in cars like the Model S, and can keep a vehicle driving on a highway while maintaining a safe distance from other drivers, even changing lanes on-command when it's safe to do so.
Autopilot is a "really exciting and really big problem and it kind of fits with my desire to solve nearly impossible problems and take on new things," Lattner explained.
He added that he expects fully autonomous cars within a decade or less, partly because cars have access to technologies like radar, which trump human senses.
Lattner -- the principal creator of LLVM, and Apple's Swift programming language -- joined Tesla this month in another sign of the ongoing poaching battle between the two companies.
Apple is known to be working on its own self-driving platform under the codename Project Titan, but its exact state is still wrapped in secrecy. The company was at one point said to be authoring a complete vehicle, but is now believed to be waiting until late 2017 to decide whether it wants to resume that effort or simply partner with a third-party automaker.
Either way, Apple's platform could distinguish itself by using augmented reality technology. A finished product likely won't hit the roads until the early 2020s.
"Cars are really important. But I'm what I consider to be an 'un-car person', Lattner said on a recent episode of the Accidental Tech Podcast. "I'm personally not the kind of guy who loves doing oil changes and fiddling around with them. I just want something that is reliable, that works, ideally drives me everywhere I want to go, and I don't have to think about it.
"It's solving my problems, it's not something I have to care for, feed and maintain. That's the way I look at cars," he continued.
Lattner noted that he hadn't considered working for a car company before, but simply because he didn't think he had relevant skills. Autopilot, however, is Tesla's self-driving platform, highly dependent on software as much as hardware. A limited version of the technology is already present in cars like the Model S, and can keep a vehicle driving on a highway while maintaining a safe distance from other drivers, even changing lanes on-command when it's safe to do so.
Autopilot is a "really exciting and really big problem and it kind of fits with my desire to solve nearly impossible problems and take on new things," Lattner explained.
He added that he expects fully autonomous cars within a decade or less, partly because cars have access to technologies like radar, which trump human senses.
Lattner -- the principal creator of LLVM, and Apple's Swift programming language -- joined Tesla this month in another sign of the ongoing poaching battle between the two companies.
Apple is known to be working on its own self-driving platform under the codename Project Titan, but its exact state is still wrapped in secrecy. The company was at one point said to be authoring a complete vehicle, but is now believed to be waiting until late 2017 to decide whether it wants to resume that effort or simply partner with a third-party automaker.
Either way, Apple's platform could distinguish itself by using augmented reality technology. A finished product likely won't hit the roads until the early 2020s.
Comments
I was sad to see him go, but Apple and Tesla are the two companies making the biggest dent in the world right now in terms of Tech (imho).
Like many other posters have stated, Teslas are just a big computer on wheels and Autopilot is where most auto companies are hoping to go. I can see the connection between his previous job and his new role at Tesla.
If anyone can push Autopilot towards widespread acceptance and usage it is Chris & the team he is now running. Funnily enough he has exactly the same view of cars as me.
Assuming you buy a good brand, cars are pretty close to being this already - and 'autonomy' isn't where they are lacking in that...
So 'autonomy' isn't going to solve most the issues he's referring to...so, just another self-promotion misdirect.
It was either Jobs or Jony who once said that Apple spends a lot of time saying, "No." to ideas for what Apple might do next. I think it was also said that they don't do things they don't think they could do a really good job at.
This is probably why they're not going to do a car.
The usual suspects here a knee-jerking their skeptical stamp on this news about Lattner.
I think he can lend his software expertise to helping Tesla with autonomous driving. There certainly ARE NOT already and "appliance" cars on the road. An appliance car would have to be very good at autonomous driving. The current state of the art is very crude—comparable to the crudeness of the first cars 150 years ago.
I would compare the concept of ubiquitous autonomous driving to a refined subway system in which passengers can take their attention completely off of driving. All they have to do is get on and off at the desired stations. Autonomous driving would involve something similar.
That's going to take a lot of hardware/software capability of which we've only scratched the surface.
In fairness, Tesla has gone some way in pursuing a better industrial design with their chassis and running gear, at least judging by the display chassis they have in the showrooms, The aluminum platform, the air suspension (Continental and Bilstein provided) and of course the electric drives all show enormous care, and they definitely approach artfulness.
Full disclosure: I come from the old school of thinking that all human tools should be works of art, insofar as that's possible. There is no Teflon in my kitchen, but plenty of 1930's cast iron.
http://daringfireball.net/
It occurs to me that it dioesn't matter, this so-called poaching war between Apple and Tesla, because the two companies are going to end up merging anyway. Trust me (and I never ever have used that stupid phrase before).
why are they behind? Because they don't announce to the world every detail they're working on? For all we know Steve Jobs could have laid down the ground work and they've been expanding on it since. I doubt all these newly built R&D centers are for the next iPhone.
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/01/23/ording-tesla
Just as much as Tesla needs Apple designer-engineers . . .
Can't even do their own brakes, hardly. I understand the pads last well over 100,000 miles.
Honda has already made good strides at addressing these problems. Many manufacturers have gotten car design and manufacture down so well that they run a darn long time without trouble. Maybe Tesla or whoever will make one that breaks less? I suppose tech will get to the point where the car will take itself for an oil change but they'll break down occasionally like any other thing.