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I think Apple needs to abandon this project all together. One, what evidence do we have that Apple has the right talent, culture and ability to build out an autonomous driving platform? Apple is not a leader in AI/AR, cloud or real-time software. Two, what evidence do we have that an automaker like BMW or Mercedes or GM is interested in Apple building the software to run their autonomous cars? And can you even build software independent from building the vehicle? I'm very skeptical. Three, when has Apple ever successfully build a piece of technology that sits inside someone else's product? The Motorola ROKR was a disaster. Apple does best when it controls the entire widget. If it can't do that here then Cook should just cancel the project and have these people re-focused on other stuff.
 
The XPS 15, is actually very nice. ;)

I bought one myself several months ago and I'm really enjoying it. I still use Macs, as well, but I'd been waiting almost two years for a new Macbook Pro to come out and finally gave up. Now, when Apple DOES release a new "Pro," I may be the first in line to buy one, but that's not the "sure thing" it would have been in the past.
 
Yeah that would have been an awful move. Buy a company that would want a ridiculous amount of money paid for it, despite the fact that they aren't profitable and seem to be headed towards losing even more money with the release of their next car.

What? In the next 2 weeks Tesla will show a profit from 3Q2016.
 
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Honestly the electric car competition is going to be quite complex in the next few years. While I like Testla, the competition from traditional car makers is going to start getting more serious, as makers move away from Diesel, and move into renewable options such as electric, fuel cell, and the likes. What we saw at the Paris auto show is likely just the tip of the iceberg.

Fuel Cells are a myth. They're difficult to make, difficult (and energy intensive) to refuel, and there's no existing infrastructure.

With EVs, there's simply not enough battery supply in the world right now. It's why Tesla is building the Gigafactory in Nevada. Once that factory is operation in 2020, Tesla will control 75% of the world's battery supply. Having all of those batteries will be enough for them to build 1M cars per year.

That's why GM says they're only going to build 30K EVs per year - they can't obtain enough batteries to build more.

Until other companies get serious about making batteries, Tesla is going to be the only major EV manufacturer. The other car manufacturers can talk all they want, but they're not making the investments that they need to right now to be a major player in this game in a few years.
 
I always thought Apple should have concentrated on the hardware to enable a self drive, rather than designing the whole vehicle themselves. Invent and sell a top notch guidance system and let other incorporate it into their vehicles.
And who is going to do that? All the automakers are doing their own thing. They don't need Apple. Plus what evidence do we have Apple is skilled at making a top notch guidance system?
 
Yeah that would have been an awful move. Buy a company that would want a ridiculous amount of money paid for it, despite the fact that they aren't profitable and seem to be headed towards losing even more money with the release of their next car.

I do a lot of research on Musk, Tesla and spaceX. And although I admire Elon Musk a lot, Tesla was on life support just a short time ago.

If it wasn't for big investors they would have been gone. It's not easy starting a car company like a Tesla from the ground up. Musk had to literally reinvent the battery for these types of vehicles just to make one affordable for the every day joe.

And they are still running into major hurtles. Not to mention the rest of the gasoline car industry wants them to fail.

One thing I do feel strongly about is the fact that Tesla is made here and not sourced out to a foreign nation unlike where Apple makes all of its products and does all of its banking.
 
I'd still like to know how many people really want a self driving car. Personally, most of my driving is short around town where I can't see it practical (knowing parking rules in town - which streets are better, not wanting to park next to a large truck with big doors, etc. ). Sure it might be nice the times I'm doing a multiple hour trip on the highway but that is a very small part of my driving.
Plus I'm sure the cost of a self driving car will be much more that a normal car plus the cost of subscriptions to maintain maps, directions, etc. etc.
Maybe there are surveys but I've never seen one and would love to see who actually is going to buy all these cars that the manufactures will make,
 
Tesla is doing okay.
Tesla is doing what Apple wanted to do, IMHO. Tesla's long term goal is to convince other car manufacturers that EV's are possible and desirable. Once that happens, they then sell/license their batteries and system platforms to anyone who wants to use it and their car lines can go bye-bye as they are no longer needed. Getting wrapped up in the messiness of factories and managing labor is not where any of these "visionary" type companies want to be. That's for the Foxconn/GM type companies of the world to deal with.
 
Yeah that would have been an awful move. Buy a company that would want a ridiculous amount of money paid for it, despite the fact that they aren't profitable and seem to be headed towards losing even more money with the release of their next car.

It was an awful move to even consider building an Apple car.
Thinking they could do it on their own, with no real experience in that sector, was foolish.

Tesla is making great cars. They will become profitable eventually.
 
and there went all the time to waste which they could have used to focus on what they actually were good at and markets they have... like Macs, before people started fleeing (like I recently did myself)
Just because you make nice phones or computers doesn't necessarily mean you can become a successful car company. Elon Musk all ready warned apple about this, should have been obvious to Apple as well. Seem to me they are biting of too large pieces these days, making too much useless "stuff" and branching out all their products into multiple weird things. Apple is becoming too cocky and disrespectful to the brands they all ready have. I dont care about the car though, I imagine they wouldn't be be able to compete in price with other brands and make too many strange feature sacrifices for it to be appealing to the end user.
 
The laserlike focus MUST return now. They need to focus on making great products and great software again. The products need to push technology forward, not backward (i.e. 5400 rpm hard drives and products that haven't been updated in years). The worry of fragmentation needs to be put aside and the software needs to be truly optimized for the latest and greatest devices. They should work on both AR and VR products, maybe even combining the two. If they do things right, cars shouldn't need to exist anymore; people should be able to do everything in one place. Didi Chuxing was a pretty good investment, but they also need to invest in some ridesharing services here. The point now is to learn, not blindly execute. The new campus cannot be finished soon enough.
 
without govt mandating autonomous driving policies such as highway lanes only to such vehicles, this will never get off the ground.

But Apple should have focused on just cars which is insanely hard to do by itself.
 
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They should just have bought Tesla if they wanted to make an Apple car.
this is kind of purchase Apple
Focus on the computer/software aspect, not the actual car part. Makes a million times more sense.
However, what's the likelihood that Ford, BMW, Mercedes, etc. would choose newcomer Apple as opposed to their own home grown systems? The only thing that would make sense is to buy Tesla (yea it will be at least a 50B purchase) and then open another division to produce cars in the style/manner Apple wants.
 
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Remember how many times you were faced with this scenario in the last year? In your life? Remember all your family members and friends who faced this scenario? Remember all the celebrities?

This problem DOES NOT EXIST. If you're faced with the scenario where you can hit a pedestrian or a brick wall, the speed limit is 20 MPH. Hitting something or someone will injure them - maybe send them to a hospital. They almost certainly won't die. Unless you're speeding badly.

With an autonomous car, defects in the brakes would be immediately noticed. The car would demand that it be serviced before driving you anywhere.
Wow, the amount of naiveness in your post is astonishing. It's like saying that technology that is designed to not fail can not possibly fail (Titanic, anyone).

Besides that, you're missing the point entirely.

The scenario is there to address the issue that machines solely make decisions on rational grounds. Humans are not rational and can take action based on synthesis on a level that machines cannot (some would call this consciousness). The level of morality of machines are currently utilitarian, and you don't want an utilitarian machine deciding over human lives.

What this means in practice is that of responsibility, if a self driving car kills someone albeit injures someone, the blames
would go to the firm producing it and is responsible for its alghoritms that lead to the accident it caused or was a part of.

It seems apple have finally understood this, and thus scrapping the project.

Also, the death rate of hitting a pedestrian at 20mph is 1/10. At 30mph is 5/10.

Get your facts straight. But I'm done with you. Have an ignore :)
 
While the technology of self-driving cars is starting to mature, next year will see some very engaging consumer liability civil suits concerning the whole product concept.

Apple Legal knows this and this "pause" in the development may be to see how these cases end before any more money is spent on this project.

The whole self-driving car concept may come to a brutal halt if too much in civil damages are rewarded.
 
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