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Apple Aiming to Begin Electric Car Production in 2020

Can someone explain why Apple would be leaking this now? I just find if baffling.
 
According to Wikipedia, Saturn was able to go from blank slate to a factory, workforce, and car in 7 years. So maybe 5 years is possible, but definitely a stretch.
What other Apple products will suffer in this timeframe due to diverted resources?
 
AppleScruff1 said:
But Apple isn't announcing it. It's been leaked to gauge consumer interest. Imagine 5 years of hype so people can convince themselves they can't live without an Apple car and how it will change their lives? Think about the potential.
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You can gage consumer interest in a product that doesn't exist?

Not a leak. Just a rumor.
 
iBug2 said:
Yes and there were companies that produced telephones for over 50 years.
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Making millions of phones is a bit easier than making millions of cars. Cars are bigger. You can't put 250,000 of them on a cargo plane and fly them around the world.
 
AppleScruff1 said:
Eventual aim. They aren't going to become the largest auto producer overnight. Most major car companies have been in business for 50-100 years. They also have huge R&D departments.
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That is the current car companies biggest weakness! They are 50 years behind and way too invested in the old way of doing things!
 
Rogifan said:
Can someone explain why Apple would be leaking this now? I just find if baffling.
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I don't believe Apple leaked it. I don't think Apple will be doing a car. It would be the weirdest thing really, something akin to an Apple hand drier.
 
mrtravel123 said:
Can't Apple just buy Canada or some other nation?

Apple isn't dreaming nearly big enough.
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Or they could come up with their own country. Hire some ex-presidents, secretaries, etc.

ifij775 said:
Tesla has made the patents available for free. Why not make money off of tesla' shard work?
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Did Tesla make all of their patents available? I think only some of their patents.
 
AppleScruff1 said:
Making millions of phones is a bit easier than making millions of cars. Cars are bigger. You can't put 250,000 of them on a cargo plane and fly them around the world.
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If you have people waiting to buy them all over the world, you can ship it to them. That's not the difficult part.
 
So looking forward to this...5 years is a long time, though. We were using rocking the iPhone 4 and iOS 4 back then, haha.

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Rogifan said:
Can someone explain why Apple would be leaking this now? I just find if baffling.
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Samsung.
 
IJ Reilly said:
You can gage consumer interest in a product that doesn't exist?

Not a leak. Just a rumor.
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Why not? I don't know how accurate it would be, but this is probably a controlled leak for whatever reason. This will be the biggest investment and undertaking in Apple's history. If it fails, it would be a huge hit on the company, it's not going to be the experiment like the 5C was, once and done.
 
I hope it comes in more colors than white, black, and space grey. :D

Making cars does not seem like an Apple thing to do... but maybe they have something in mind that would make it worth it? I guess we'll see.
 
Early concepts feature the following:
  1. It won't have Windows
  2. Steering wheel replaced by Trackpad
  3. You'll need an iPhone for full functionality
  4. Horn replaced by Gestures
 
iBug2 said:
If you have people waiting to buy them all over the world, you can ship it to them. That's not the difficult part.
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Quantity. Autos are shipped from Japan, Korea, etc to the US by ship. It's not overnight delivery.
 
tsss don't speak if you don't know

robertcoogan said:
This is so utterly ****ing ridiculous. WHAT IS GOING ON AT APPLE? A ****ing car?!?!?!?

Truly this is not Steve Jobs' company any more. Wow.
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enough with the "steve jobs would never approve" etc. people at apple are not crazy lunatics. and it was indeed jobs' dream to build an iCar. the project was in the pipeline even before the iPhone.

read his biography, him (and jony ive) hate most cars built today and he def wanted to get in that industry.


http://www.fastcompany.com/3000126/apple-svp-confirms-steve-jobs-icar-dream
 
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wilhoitm said:
That is the current car companies biggest weakness! They are 50 years behind and way too invested in the old way of doing things!
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The auto industry could possibly get flipped upside down very quickly for this very reason.
 
AppleScruff1 said:
Quantity. Autos are shipped from Japan, Korea, etc to the US by ship. It's not overnight delivery.
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Obviously, but if someone wants to buy an automobile, they are used to waiting for it if the model is not available in the shop that day. Nobody expects to buy these the moment they want them.

The hard part would be manufacturing them. No factory in China will be producing 50000 of these every day. Apple would probably need new factories all around the world.
 
wilhoitm said:
That is the current car companies biggest weakness! They are 50 years behind and way too invested in the old way of doing things!
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The Apple car will probably be built with low cost Foxconn labor. There are plenty of state of the art auto making facilities from many different companies.
 
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