byronl

Marvin said:

haikus said:

Do we really need an Apple car? I dislike cars so I may be biased ;-) I understand that for many people cars have a much prominent importance. Nevertheless, I would love Apple to innovate instead of (allegedly) improving something that already exists.

We need something better than what we have. Some people like the idea of a super car:

but this would only be worth doing if they could hit a mass market price point. One thing we definitely need is driverless taxis and if they can look cool at the same time so be it.

A lot of the Apple SVPs have been reported as fans of luxury cars and Steve Jobs was too. Jony Ive's cars are listed here:

https://www.cultofmac.com/254380/jony-ives-cars/

and he was at a design event talking about cars:

If Apple does nothing then the industry won't improve much just like how the smartphone industry was. The car industry today looks like the smartphone industry in 2006 - too many models, nobody making anything that stands above the rest, all overpriced for the experience they offer, which is an experience of necessity rather than contentment.

Some people point to Tesla changing the industry but Tesla cars haven't done to the car industry what the iPhone did to smartphones, they've been going for 18 years and have around 2% marketshare. The car industry will change more slowly due to the high purchase price but even in isolation, a Tesla product doesn't feel significantly better than competing models to the point that it would be hard to choose something other than a Tesla. Tesla has made owning an EV practical, which has some significance but this is like Blackberry making the web accessible on mobile. It was usable but it wasn't the right way to do it. Jony Ive refers to this in the video above saying that innovating is hard because there's no point of reference. Making an innovative car requires rethinking every part that goes into making one based on everything we now know that people use them for. Apple is still the best company that can deliver on this.

mike1 said:

byronl said:

all these non tesla companies are so far behind in ev technology. i hope apple takes powertrain design and much of the manufacturing processes into its own hands.

How on earth can you believe it would make sense for Apple to open their own manufacturing plant, an area with which they have exactly zero experience. They don't even own their own facilities for manufacturing phones and tablets. There are already many manufacturers with experience and infrastructure to build cars. It will only take one or two of them with the capacity and willingness to manufacture for Apple. Has nothing to do with EV experience. Has everything to do with manufacturing cars, one of the most, if not THE most regulated industries in the world for consumer products.

Kuyangkoh said:

I have original Homepod that I sold in ebay for $199, imagine that folks will still buy them. You can still find the woofer only for sale. I wonder why?? 

woofer only? wtf