Apple Abandons Car Plans 'For Now,' Sets Late 2017 Deadline to Decide Fate of Self-Driving System

[Dmunjal]

Good points, but until Tessa delivers I remain skeptical. Tessa hasn't delivers 20k vehicles to date, bust must do so for 3 quarters to hit 80k in a year. Stating a goal is far different from hitting it; and any hiccup in supply can stall their plans. As for orders, until they are fulfilled they are simply a way to raise funds to stay afloat; and even so customers can cancel preorders if they get tired of waiting or an other option becomes available.

As for GM, if they told their suppliers they want batteries to build more EVs the suppliers would find a way to ramp up production. Absent such a commitment there is no incentive to create the capacity. It's a case of pull demand driving capacity, not the other way around. GM doesn't see the demand, yet, so they are unwilling to produce more vehicles they may not sell.

If you do the math, you can see Tesla has already delivered 53712 through three quarters this year. They plan to deliver 25500 in Q4 which brings it to 79212. I expect them to beat 80K easily. The rumor is that they will announce Autopilot 2.0 this Wednesday (10/19). That will definitely bring in new buyers.

As far as GM goes, they don't seem to believe in their product if they are only limiting it to 50K units. Building battery capacity doesn't happen overnight.

I recall how Apple got a leg up on the competition by locking down all the flash inventory as the smartphone market was about to take off. That's what Tesla is doing with the gigafactory. This is how a company takes market share.

 

[mi7chy]

Tesla will be #1 with the largest marketshare and probably the reason why Apple is throwing in the towel. Goodbye to carbon footprint, foreign oil dependency that impacts national security and dealing with bad human drivers. Too bad Elon Musk can't run for president.

 

[tentales]

I'm sick of waiting for this Apple Car to come out.

Instead, I went out and bought a DELL XPS. Couldn't be happier with my decision.

Which one? I've got the new Kaby Lake 13" non-touch 8/256 on order for less than a grand after discounts.
Gotta see if the grass is greener...

 

[mi7chy]

Which one? I've got the new Kaby Lake 13" non-touch 8/256 on order for less than a grand after discounts.
Gotta see if the grass is greener...

Kaby Lake is worth the wait. It supposedly has 4k 60fps h265 HEVC and VP9 hardware accelerated decoding so that means no more overheating, battery drain and not having to install h264ify Chrome add-on.

 

[SteveW928]

Thinking and reasoning aren't required, so you are committing a logical error, as well as demonstrating an insufficient imagination.

Thinking and reasoning aren't required if it isn't automated driving. If it is, they are. If that's not scary to you, maybe it's you that needs a bit more imagination. In the real world, it's simply impossible to put every potential situation into a database.

The rumor is that they will announce Autopilot 2.0 this Wednesday (10/19). That will definitely bring in new buyers

The one that doesn't drive into the side of tractor-trailers and decapitate you? I wonder what the next missing thing is? I guess we'll find out.

Tesla will be #1 with the largest marketshare and probably the reason why Apple is throwing in the towel. Goodbye to carbon footprint, foreign oil dependency that impacts national security and dealing with bad human drivers. Too bad Elon Musk can't run for president.

It's a nearly 5000 lb machine that can go zero-60 in like 3-5 seconds.... running buggy software. I'll take my chances with human drivers. Hopefully there are smart human drivers of Teslas who drive the car themselves and/or responsibly use 'autopilot' (i.e.: allows you to take your hands off the wheel for a few moments, while still being attentive to the road). Anyone who's doing more than that deserves a Darwin award, and hopefully doesn't take out too many innocents with them.

 

[IJ Reilly]

As far as GM goes, they don't seem to believe in their product if they are only limiting it to 50K units. Building battery capacity doesn't happen overnight.

They aren't limiting it, but if they do sell 50k of the Bolt in its first year, that will roughly double their EV sales. Not bad for a company that isn't supposed to be interested in EVs.
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Thinking and reasoning aren't required if it isn't automated driving. If it is, they are. If that's not scary to you, maybe it's you that needs a bit more imagination. In the real world, it's simply impossible to put every potential situation into a database.

Every situation in a database is your arbitrary definition of how it might work.

 

[SteveW928]

Every situation in a database is your arbitrary definition of how it might work.

You should probably look into it and think about it a bit more then. That's more Google's approach. Tesla's is *MUCH* more crude.

 

[magbarn]

Tesla is doing okay.

Take away the $5,000,000,000+ (this isn't including what they got in 2016) that Tesla has gotten from government subsidies and we'll see how well they'll continue to do...

 

[Dmunjal]

Take away the $5,000,000,000+ (this isn't including what they got in 2016) that Tesla has gotten from government subsidies and we'll see how well they'll continue to do...

What government subsidies did they get that aren't available to every other manufacturer? Even these numbers pale in comparison to what Big Oil gets in subsidies. If you're talking about the DOE loan made under Bush, that was paid back years ago and early. Ford hasn't paid back their loan yet.

 

[Dmunjal]

The one that doesn't drive into the side of tractor-trailers and decapitate you? I wonder what the next missing thing is? I guess we'll find out.

Not a fair point. The guy in your example was watching a Harry Potter DVD while driving on AP.

It's a nearly 5000 lb machine that can go zero-60 in like 3-5 seconds.... running buggy software. I'll take my chances with human drivers. Hopefully there are smart human drivers of Teslas who drive the car themselves and/or responsibly use 'autopilot' (i.e.: allows you to take your hands off the wheel for a few moments, while still being attentive to the road). Anyone who's doing more than that deserves a Darwin award, and hopefully doesn't take out too many innocents with them.

So far, Tesla has racked up millions of miles on AP and the fatality rate is less than the average.

 

[deany]

Seems like Apple is looking for the next growth market now

The sooner they get their "Apple Personal Assistant" (amazon Echo) to market the better and option to change to "Hey apple" I think home automation is where its at.
And Tim, just buy SONOS will you ASAP, don't want google or amazon getting in there first.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

Nope, you can buy a Tesla here if you want and they want to heavily push electric vehicles. Perhaps you meant to say 'autonomous'?

Apparently they are going to make autonomous vehicles have to pass a driving test!?!?!?!?!?!?!? So prove the software and sensors work?

I was talking about electrical cars. So no petrol required.

 

[sudo1996]

I couldn't see it happening. Apple has always primarily made consumer electronics. It doesn't even make sense for them to make a car. And it's not a quick growth market if you're a new brand. Put out a car, and you'll need to wait years for consumers to trust it. Tesla is fighting hard to make a profit (still losing), and this is totally their game, and they've always been set up to manufacture cars.

They should just make the computers and software for car entertainment/navigation because even Tesla apparently doesn't know how to do it right.

 

[thekeyring]

Take away the $5,000,000,000+ (this isn't including what they got in 2016) that Tesla has gotten from government subsidies and we'll see how well they'll continue to do...

They paid off the original loan:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-05-22/tesla-pays-off-its-465-million-loser-loan

 

[aliensporebomb]

My co-worker who had one of the original Volts she was leasing just got one of the new vo

Brake failure on an electric car wouldn't matter as much. The car would just use the electric motor to stop the vehicle. That's essentially what regen braking is.

My Prius does this NOW. My understanding is any braking above a certain speed utilizes the regen which is why I haven't needed to have the brakes redone in a decade.
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Me. I've got a 25 minute commute. To get almost an hour back each day would be awesome. All of the other ways a self-driving car would save time and effort would be great, too. No need to get a cab or bug a friend for a ride to the airport. Need to pick up the kids? Send the car.

It's hard to say just how much they might change society, but some of it is flat out easy to imagine. It may no longer make sense to own a car. Send the car for groceries--it pulls into a pickup area, they're loaded in the trunk, and home it comes. Send it to get its oil changed. The small ways it would save time add up.

Hence my caveat. Long distance commuters. 25 minute is annoying but I think of people like my boss at work. He has a 120 mile commute every day and he's done this commute for over ten years. He first used a Diesel Jetta by VW and now has a Chevy Diesel Cruze. But that also makes me think that though an autopilot feature would be useful it wouldn't be something I'd rely on every day or for every drive. I have cruise control in my vehicle but don't use it every day or every drive.

 

[PBG4 Dude]

You, as a human, didn't recognize symptoms that your brakes were failing. The self driving car, on the other hand, knows exactly how much the car should be slowing down. If it's not slowing down by the right amount, the car needs to be serviced.

Also... I've never been in this situation before so just asking... shouldn't your E-brake/parking brake still work?

I had one foot on regular brake and one on the E-brake. I had just blown through the first stop sign and realized my brakes had failed so I stomped on E-brake. At this point it didn't do anything.

This was a '72 Gran Torino I was driving in '88 so the E-brake may not have been 100% at the time as well.

The E-brake was what kept me from going into the ocean after I hit the flat part of the road after the intersection. My rims were smoking because they were so hot! I know this because I was kissing the ground next to them when I got out of my car and was still alive.

What was truly amazing was my buddies and I (there were two other people in the car) pushed my car to a gas station and bought a pint of brake fluid.

Anyone in the Bay Area knows the middle eastern store operators will charge you for a book of matches even when buying a pack of smokes.

The guy running the store had a friend who ran up to him and started talking frantically in a foreign language and gesturing at my car. The store owner came over and gave me a second pint of brake fluid for free.

 

[nt5672]

Which raw material are we going to run out of? Lithium? It's naturally occurring worldwide. You can get it from seawater.

The US Geological Survey estimates 13 million tonnes known reserves. Oddly enough Ford estimates 39 million tonnes known reserves. Now which do you believe? We are using about 0.6 million tonnes per year right now. So the math says 21 to 65 years and then no more lithium, without the cost skyrocketing in order to get it from low density sources such as seawater or recycling. The cost of recycling is currently over twice the current cost of mining and refinement. Most people call lithium a rare element for a reason. So we are ditching an energy source that has 100's of years of availability for one with less than 65 years of very optimistic availability without an engineering breakthrough. Seems costly and not real smart to me. Once we get to electric cars that are not subsidized only the rich will be able to afford them. A set of batteries for a Tesla will run $15,000+ and have to be replaced every 6 years once the subsidies go away. Of course then it will be too late to chose as there will not be any low cost alternatives.

 

[MacBergin]

They couldn't get the car thin enough so they had to abandon it.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

You've got that totally wrong. The Germans are pushing the EU to get electric cars to replace cars with combustion engines by 2030.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...combustion-diesel-vehicles-2030-a7354281.html

The resolution urges the European Commission to implement the ban across the European Union

So I got it totally wrong? I am under the impression I am pretty close but whatever. If Germany pushes for this something will happen. Maybe not 2030 but 2033?

 

[RogerWilco]

The US Geological Survey estimates 13 million tonnes known reserves. Oddly enough Ford estimates 39 million tonnes known reserves. Now which do you believe? We are using about 0.6 million tonnes per year right now. So the math says 21 to 65 years and then no more lithium, without the cost skyrocketing in order to get it from low density sources such as seawater or recycling.

The Atacama Desert in Chile has vast deposits of lithium. That is why you see almost as many Chinese as Chileans down there. The Chinese are building a huge port facility and super highway in Peru near the border of Chile...

 

[OllyW]

So I got it totally wrong? I am under the impression I am pretty close but whatever. If Germany pushes for this something will happen. Maybe not 2030 but 2033?

The way you had worded your post made it sound like you were saying electric cars would not be allowed on sale until 2030.

 

[cube]

The Atacama Desert in Chile has vast deposits of lithium. That is why you see almost as many Chinese as Chileans down there. The Chinese are building a huge port facility and super highway in Peru near the border of Chile...

Isn't that for Bolivia's lithium?

 

[magbarn]

What government subsidies did they get that aren't available to every other manufacturer? Even these numbers pale in comparison to what Big Oil gets in subsidies. If you're talking about the DOE loan made under Bush, that was paid back years ago and early. Ford hasn't paid back their loan yet.

Google is your friend.
Also I forgot to include the $173,000,000+ that they've received from cap and trade taxes from other auto manufacturers (which of course then pass it on to consumers) and CA cap n trade gasoline taxes. In other words, if you live in California and drive a plebeian gasoline car, you've paid a bit into that rich 1%er driving her/his $100,000 Tesla (I have a few rich acquaintances and none have purchased a Tesla for less than 100 grand)

One more thing that pertains to this discussion, do you think Apple would've been able to compete with Tesla without the subsidies that Tesla is getting? In other words, politico's would have been slammed if they started giving subsidies to Apple who supposedly owes Billions of dollars in unpaid taxes as they 'hide' their money overseas...

 

[Gudi]

2012 Tesla Model S - Jay Leno's Garage

"It's an electric car that doesn't look like an electric car." — Jay Leno

Oh, Really?

Reminds me of the Microsoft Surface, the tablet that doesn't look like a tablet. Instead it's big, hot, heavy and loud like an old laptop. The tablet for people who don't want a tablet. That's Tesla in a car.

 

[Al'sDad]

Yeah, we can build a car. The most unique and user friendly car in the universe. The Apple car.

Nope, we're not going to build a car.

Yeah, let's hire every automotive automation tech who ever lived. Let's pirate people from Tesla. Let's build the Apple car.

Nope, we're not going to build a car.

(repeat above ad nauseum)

Right on, Tim. You certainly know how to steer (pun intended) a company in the right direction.

Or was it the other direction?