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

[medazinol]

Apple doesn't license much of it's technology so I wonder why they would develop this kind of thing if they don't intend to use it in a car they will ultimately make. Let alone another car company wanting to license something from Apple. The car business is still very much like Apple in the 90s: "the not invented here" syndrome.

 

[jlc1978]

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.

Because pedestrians never do anything stupid like run across a multi lane highway, that has concrete noise barriers in place, with speeds in excess of 45 MPH?

With an autonomous car, defects in the brakes would be immediately noticed. The car would demand that it be serviced before driving you anywhere.

Probably not. Current cars could do that but don't do anything beyond warning you; probably for liability reasons. If you needed the car in an emergency and it reuse to go because it decided the brakes were not OK the manufacturer could wind up being sued.

 

[Arcus]

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?

Plenty . Others are already familiar with the automotive industry.

 

[medazinol]

Seems like Apple is looking for the next growth market now that computers, tablets, and cell phones have (or are well onto) plateau'd to a commodity product. Strange that they picked cars, self driving or otherwise.

I think they saw what Tesla was doing and using much of Apple's "playbook" in terms of how they cars are sold and thought they would be able to do the same thing. 2 years into it it seems they've discovered just how hard it is to design and eventually manufacture a car from scratch. Even Elon has said starting a car company is "stupidity squared"

 

[Wiesenlooser]

I'm bummed if this turns out to be true. An Apple car was one of the only possible apple products that would have gotten me truly excited.

Electric mobility is by far one of the biggest technological shifts in the next decades or so. It does not shed a good light on them, that they wanted to build a car in the beginning, stripped down the efforts to just build a software platform and now even that is uncertain.

Building a car is very very hard. But it does not make me feel optimistic about apples future, when their ambitious projects fall flat. Frankly, what did we get out of the cook era besides the Apple Watch?

Also, it seems so un-Apple like that they are satisfied with providing the software solution only.

 

[BeefCake 15]

The one time Tim ventures off Steve Jobs' strategy book, this happens...Like it or not Jobs is still running Apple with his vision even years after his death.
[doublepost=1476721570][/doublepost]

I'm bummed if this turns out to be true. An Apple car was one of the only possible apple products that would have gotten me truly excited.

Electric mobility is by far one of the biggest technological shifts in the next decades or so. It does not shed a good light on them, that they wanted to build a car in the beginning, stripped down the efforts to just build a software platform and now even that is uncertain.

Why? I rode an electric motorcycle when I was a toddler...don't see the hype about electric vs. gasoline.

 

[Dmunjal]

I have a Volt and it's the best car I've ever driven. Rock solid, totally reliable, and most days I drive 100% EV, yet I have the option to take longer trips on gas. IMO the Volt is the most practical EV solution on the market and it's a shame more people don't understand it.

The Bolt, I would love to get a Bolt but it just wouldn't work for me since I'm a one-car person. Weekend trips would be too problematic. But damn, it's an amazing engineering achievement and GM deserves to sell a crap ton of them. Cool thing: I saw a Bolt this summer here in MI, it was in a parking lot and Chief Engineer Josh Tavel was pacing outside the car on his cell. I gave him the thumbs up but he was too busy to notice.

The problem is that that they don't have the battery capacity to build more than 30K next year. Tesla is already selling 80K in a year.

 

[vmachiel]

I think they abandoned Mac plans too.

Was just about to say that. I don't care about any rumors, just announce and event already.

 

[kattskrall]

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.

Well that can fail too you know

 

[mi7chy]

Apple need to fix Apple Maps, Siri and AI before even considering making a car.

 

[routine_analyst]

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.

Tesla's new long term is very obviously battery production for all major auto manufacturers. They got (with the help of the US government) a massive kick start in that direction, along with all the research and advancement they did in the development of cars that proved the technology. I wouldn't be so negative on Tesla, as it's not uncommon for a country to stand behind a car brand to see it eventually reach success.

 

[macs4nw]

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?

So true. They are perhaps lacking a clear vision and/or laser focus, or possibly the 'goalposts' are moving and shifting from 'just electric vehicles' to 'commercial autonomous vehicles for hire'. As there are currently so many others furiously working behind the scenes on autonomous vehicle tech, I agree with Elon Musk that any further delays by Apple could very well translate into a 'missed opportunity'.

You've got to feel somewhat bad for some of those employees who, after leaving well paying jobs at other companies to make a great career move to join Apple's Titan project, have now been re-assigned or terminated.

 

[troy14]

The XPS 15, is actually very nice.

Purchased a used XPS 13 (the new ones maxed out) on craigslist for a crazy steal price for my brother back home in Michigan. Played with it for a day or two before shipping it out and was amazingly impressed. If I need a new laptop any time soon I would strongly consider the Macbook vs XPS 13. The touch screen was awesome and worked really well. Only thing not the greatest was the trackpad.

 

[canadianreader]

Apple focus is on iPhones, iPhone accessories and related services then from time to time iPads that's it.

 

[Gudi]

As I've always told you, driving on arbitrary roads requires actual human intelligence and artificial intelligence is no match. Self-driving only works in controlled environments like subway systems.

 

[kattskrall]

That's not true at all. Self-driving cars don't have to have a sense of morality. They "just" need to be significantly safer than human-driven cars.

You want self driving cars to avoid the situations where, e.g., either A or B dies, not make those choices.

Note: this is the same for human drivers. We teach people how to understand and obey traffic signals, how to adjust to weather and visibility conditions, how to signal your intentions to other drivers, when it's safe to merge and turn, etc. We don't teach people how to choose whether to crash into different groups of pedestrians or when to sacrifice ourselves. Did you get that kind of question on your driving test?

The idea that self-driving cars need to understand morality is pure nonsense.

It's larger than morality and that example of who to choose to kill is used as an example to show the faults of a purely 'mechanical' system.

Machines (AI) can't synthesize information like humans do. We read "between the lines", machines do what they are told and that's it. You can have them learn behavioral patterns, but it still comes down to that someone have told it to learn what to learn in a specific way. And we live in a quite complex world where i would say there are many factors that are hard to program ahead.

It sounds like you're saying that people are acting like rational beings on the road, acting like they do based on what they have learned in driving school. As someone who have been driving for the last 15 years, I wish they did

And it boils down to the problem of blame. If (when) something actually goes wrong with a self driving car, who is to blame? Is it the Apple who programmed it in a certain manner (it just does what it's told, remember). Would the programmer be associated by murder due to a sloppy algorithm? Last one is a stretch but yea

 

[canadianreader]

They should just have bought Tesla if they wanted to make an Apple car.

I prefer Tesla to remain in Musk's hands he proved he could do good things with way less money than Apple.

 

[David Buchsbaum]

Be nice if they started to laser focus again like that have in the past with just a few awesome products....getting back to Macs would be a great starting point ;-)

Totally agree! They've gotten too far away from computers (as evidenced by their name change) and are trying to be "with it" where the "it" is everything: music, watches, health, cars. Time for Apple to come home. (By the way, I've been an Apple user since 1985.)

 

[Reason077]

Until we can program morality, self driving cars won't be a thing.

(The classic problem when the car has to decide who to kill if the brakes fail scenario)

Even an "immoral" self-driving car, which would always try to preserve its occupants in an accident at the expense of others, would still be far safer for other road users than a human driver.

Self driving cars will save many, many lives.

 

[canadianreader]

Totally agree! They've gotten too far away from computers (as evidenced by their name change) and are trying to be "with it" where the "it" is everything: music, watches, health, cars. Time for Apple to come home. (By the way, I've been an Apple user since 1985.)

I share your view. They are no longer invested in Macs as before.

 

[rGiskard]

The problem is that that they don't have the battery capacity to build more than 30K next year. Tesla is already selling 80K in a year.

Officially, on the record, GM affiliates have stated that production can be ramped up to 50K if the demand is there. Unofficially through local suppliers here in MI the word is that max capacity with a one year lead time is about 70K.

The Bolt's battery pack is built by LG in an overseas plant, but they have a Michigan plant that could also produce batteries on short notice. That's where the 70K figure likely originates. LG are a manufacturing powerhouse so if the demand is there then they will meet it, even if it takes a year or two.

Unfortunately the limit to Bolt sales will likely be GM's incompetent marketing, general consumer anxiety about new auto tech, and GM's poor reputation for quality. They deserve the bad reputation but they've been turning it around over the past decade. The Volt even ranks among the most reliable cars on the market.

 

[kattskrall]

Even an "immoral" self-driving car, which would always try to preserve its occupants in an accident at the expense of others, would still be far safer for other road users than a human driver.

Self driving cars will save many, many lives.

Selling it as the "immoral car" would be hilarious

 

[Gudi]

I prefer Tesla to remain in Musk's hands he proved he could do good things with way less money than Apple.

The inventor of the reusable exploding rocket surely knows how to burn money.
Also: Hyperloop to Infinity!

 

[monstruo]

Honestly, this doesn't come at a surprise.

Apple has proven to everyone again and again that they could disrupt existing technology under the vision of Steve Jobs.
Doubt no manufacturer would want to partner with Apple knowing that it will disrupt the existing car market industry and their way of business.

Who knows... Maybe if Steve is still around, he might charm someone and convince them to make some apple cars. But that being said... nobody will ever know.

 

[rizzo41999]

Tim's spreading the company way too thin. So many projects being worked on at once, definitely don't have that "laser focus..."