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

gim said:
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.
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Thinking they can make autonomous or self driving software that automakers will put in their cars is ridiculous. Google is so far ahead of them in this space. And most automakers are already working on their own stuff. They don't need Apple. Apple should focus on making their existing products better.
 
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otternonsense said:
What a waste of time and resources. Meanwhile, happy Tim continues tweeting one photo after another from his super awesome trip to Japan.

I also can't help but remember how excited he was about the rise of services during the earnings call of the previous quarter, despite all hardware sales having gone south.

With a languished Mac, iPhone and iPads that haven't been redesigned in years, discontinued Cinema Displays and half-hearted peripherals, I wonder if Tim is invested in hardware at all or his vision is exclusively focused on services.

It's an easy conclusion, but evidence points to that direction.
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You're welcome to apply to Apple, work your way up, and do things differently instead of pretending like you have magical answers or like everyone else on Earth is only capable of doing one thing at a time.
 
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LooZpl said:
What? In the next 2 weeks Tesla will show a profit from 3Q2016.
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They have had great sales in Q3, but that does not lead to a profit when they are still losing money on each car sold. At the end of the year 2016 will still be a loss. The elephant in the room is their Model 3, which has the potential to break the company if it isn't handled correctly.
 
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I agree with the idea of holding the auto project.
iPhone project was something related to Apple was already good at, computer operating system, and it was an introduction of a new technology to the market, and consumer behavior has changed significantly, spending several hundred dollars for phones instead of $100.
Apple might be good at battery management and designing, but a car is so much more than that.
I disagree with Elon, the opportunity has not arrived yet. Tesla is committed to be a pioneer and creating its own product ecosystem and market. The problem of Tesla is not making money and will need tremendous amount of capital expenditure for years to come. Apple may join the massive capital investment party at later time if ever.
 
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sputnikv said:
that's unfortunate. if a company like apple with all of its immense cash reserves and resources can't move forward, then what hope is there for others?
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Theres plenty of hope for others. Having lived in Michigan (near the motor city) my whole life and currently associated with the auto industry......its a very very complex market where its virtually impossible for Apple to have the "control" they love so much. The whole timeline for a car is very very different than a consumer electronics product. Stuff Apple might want to do for year X might not even be possible for years. Not to mention government regulation, crash testing, safety.......etc.

Its just a different beast. I'm shocked Apple even wasted so many billions on it.

On a side note.....I'm not sure I trust the Apple of today to deliver a car that might be buggy and crash......pun intended.
 
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Carving a new niche or creating a new market segment in the $200-$3000 range is probably doable on a relatively frequent basis. Apple used to be good at it.

Creating huge demand in the $75,000-$150,000 range (for cars) will always be hard - much smaller market, massive capital outlay, long time to build out the infrastructure. Why Apple thought they could just throw money at it is difficult to fathom. IOT, corporate IT markets are surely closer to home for them?
 
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chr1s60 said:
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.
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Buying Tesla would be crazy. But in the high end automotive space Tesla already comfortably outsells Mercedes, BMW and Audi in the U.S. I'm talking about in $75,000 to $125,000 range where Tesla currently sells its cars. We shall see how they do in the lower end area, but if they can outsell the top luxury brands in the $40,000 range, that will be very impressive.
 
Kaibelf said:
You're welcome to apply to Apple, work your way up, and do things differently instead of pretending like you have magical answers or like everyone else on Earth is only capable of doing one thing at a time.
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So according to you, you cannot make an informed statement about a company you've followed for decades unless you become the company CEO? Brilliant.
 
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Great news. Cars are boring and even full EVs are little more than an incremental step. Self-driving, like voice-recognition assistants, will be disappointing at first and improve very slowly. The real future is in better urban land use and mixed transportation solutions, none of which Apple or Silicon Valley in general know anything about.
 
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LooZpl said:
What? In the next 2 weeks Tesla will show a profit from 3Q2016.
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Yeah due to pre-orders they're still fulfilling.

If 10,000 people gave me $1000 to put towards making a product and it took me a year to do so, I'd show a profit for the first few days as well until i started producing said product at a loss/break even.
 
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Rogifan said:
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?
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We don't, but maybe they (or someone) will come out with the 'iPhone' of the car guidance world, a game changer which everyone will say, "wow, we have to have this in our vehicles" (or "we have to copy this", in some cases :) )
 
Apple should've focused on the IoT within the home. This would've been a logical step in their tech lineup and expertise. As I've said before the iWatch and iCar have been nothing but a monumental waste of time and resources.
 
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I never thought they ever intended to build a whole car. Tim's continued comments about AR I believe confirm what I've always thought, they have been working on a heads up/AR software that has always been key to what they are doing.
 
kattskrall said:
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.
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I fear you've been watching too much "I, Robot".

Though I'd argue just watching that film once is too much. :D
 
chr1s60 said:
They have had great sales in Q3, but that does not lead to a profit when they are still losing money on each car sold.
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Totally BS. You're repeating some kind of FUD against Tesla. Look at financial reports.
 
I'm not sure what Apple was up to, but I have a few ideas about what I'd like Apple to be up to: more investment in the Mac and AppleTV. Perhaps Jobs could lead consumers by the nose to new pastures to be enjoyed, but now it seems like Apple has a niche and has been neglectful of it.
 
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