Apple Car Design Goals: No Steering Wheel or Brake Pedal, Flat Seats for Sleeping, Large Screens, and More

[ian87w]

LOL. Do you want to trust a vehicle from a company that cheapened out on their premium laptops by using a cable that was too short? Apple couldn't even design laptop logic board that is safe, opting to put high voltage electricity and data connection side by side, risking damage. A car from these guys? LOL.

 

[eifelbube]

Who else is tired of reading stories about the so called apple car. For years and years. With any potential car not likely to hit the market (if at all?) for many years to come. Wake me up when there’s any tangible information or anything official.

I am tired too, yes. But the new twists projected for a means of transportation my generation will not live to see on public roads keep me amused. It is still science fiction … which is good because if the artificial intelligence Q of Siri is any indication of the AI to underlie the AppleCarPo I would fear for the life of my grandchildren.

 

[gagaliya]

Such short sightedness and lack of vision, that all of you guys can see is only what's directly in front of you.

1) It's a matter of when not if, when level 3-5 full self driving becomes reality, with GM/Tesla/Waymo being the currently lead contenders. As soon as true self driving is achieved in the next 5-10 years, you can bet the cars as we know it will change drastically - removing the steering wheel, shifters, and pedals will be common. Apple is simply looking ahead with their design and vision, even though the self driving tech today may not be there yet.

2) It took apple approximately 8 years to release the first iPhone from the blackberry era, forever changing the smart phone as we know it. Then the next 8 years saw incredible advancement from iPhone 1 to iPhone 6. It's the same with self driving and cars, abit on a far grander and complex platform. We are in the "blackberry" era now for self driving, once first level 5 fsd is achieved, the pace of advancement in cars will go parabolic then eventually flatten out to become incremental again, similar to what we have today with the iPhones. Apple is simply preparing for that eventual future and trying to get ahead of the competition.

have some vision, and enjoy the ride,

 

[mthomas184]

So they patent door hinges, and modular body panels, suspension components and a couple hundred other things, all to improve Car Play, for which they would get about $20-100 a vehicle license fee from manufacturers who would rather use their own control software to begin with.

Apple has patents for a LOT of things that never come to fruition.

I don’t ever see an Apple car coming.

 

[WhoDaKat]

It’s not a car as we know it. It’s a service.

To understand what Apple is aiming for, we have to wipe clear what we’ve known about cars and look to how the newer generation are using cars — at least in cities. Personal transport is becoming a service. In a world where Uber is ubiquitous, fewer and fewer young people are getting their drivers’ licenses because they can pull out their phone and within 5 minutes there’s a car pulling up, taking them to where they need to go. Those of us who grew up in a car era with the romance of driving one and owning one and washing it in the driveway — we are not the target, unless we want to be. Apple is looking way ahead.

Apple was never in a business position to sell cars. iPhones, iPads, Watches, AirPods and Macs are more expensive than their industry counterparts but they still fall within the price accessibility of a large enough portion of users that Apple can make a business out of it. The same is not true for cars. A car is already very expensive, add the Apple tax and only wealthy folks would be able to afford it. Apple is not in the rich customer exclusivity niche.

Apple is getting into this sector because they must, in order to compete. It’s no secret that Google is doing the same and they cannot allow themselves to be in a position where Google or other third parties control one of the largest services that could then dictate how Apple interacts with it.

These are going to be more like Apple Pods, than cars in the traditional sense of the word. You’ll tap your watch and a Pod will show up, take you to where you need to go and then pick up the next passenger. No driver, no user steering, all Apple experience inside.

There will always be cars that we drive ourselves and Apple seems to be doubling down on partnering with other manufacturers to bring their experience into those vehicles. But what Apple is releasing themselves, is leaping over that industry and into something completely new.

Uber currently owns this spot… are they making any money? My Uber stock is in the toilet. And the model isn’t reasonable for every day drivers, which is most of the country’s workforce. You aren’t going to pay for an uber to work and then back home every day. That would be cost prohibitive.

 

[The Cappy]

...

As the Apple Car slowly inches towards launching ...

Is it?

 

[The Cappy]

Looks like they're leaning into the Minority Report type of automated vehicles. iRobot had the sense to keep the steering wheel and pedals so the robots couldn't control everything. I wonder what John Connor would have to say about this.

As stupid as Hollywood writers appear to be, it must be really terrifying not to be able to think about something except in the context of a movie. Just FYI, both of those movies were adaptations of stories whose authors (if either had still been alive) would have said, "You missed the whole f-ing point of that story."

 

[ipedro]

Uber currently owns this spot… are they making any money? My Uber stock is in the toilet.

I can't believe I have to explain this to you, but Uber has to pay human drivers. A driverless pod is an entirely different business.

That said, Apple's services are not intended to be profitable. They're there to support the real revenue driver: the ecosystem of hardware: primarily for this segment, iPhones, Watches and soon Glasses.

Apple makes zero money selling tv+ subscriptions. In fact, it's a massive financial liability. But like the car, it's a defensive strategy, one that will keep Apple in the game when up against Google who is jostling to get into the personal transport market as well. Selling rides isn't going to make much if any money directly, but it'll protect their multi-trillion dollar valuation.

And the model isn’t reasonable for every day drivers, which is most of the country’s workforce. You aren’t going to pay for an uber to work and then back home every day. That would be cost prohibitive.

Selling pocket super computers that work with an at the time unheard of multitouch screen to people who carried $100 (or free on a plan) cell phones in their pockets would have seemed cost prohibitive if explained to them at the time. You need to think three dimensionally. A future service cannot be looked at in the context of the reality today, where that service doesn't exist.

Besides, you're paying for that car every day, leasing it, paying for insurance, filling it with gas, paying for maintenance, then buying a new one when it breaks down. That's no less cost prohibitive.

 

[macbetta]

That’s the point of better reflexes. Avoidance maneuvers can be implemented 3-5 times faster, meaning better reaction times and the best possible outcome under the worse possible conditions.

Okay but there are other scenarios where someone who has control of their own vehicle can cause an accident still or even harass someone in an autonomous vehicle that has no user controls. I'm arguing less about how accurate/safe the car and the tech can become and more about how many people will still psychologically feel uncomfortable in a vehicle with zero ability to maneuver it manually while there are still a lot of other people driving manually on the road. The only way a lot of people would feel safe actually sleeping in a car they are "driving" is if they are all automated, otherwise there are still going to be more accidents than there would be if everything was autonomous and even if your super car dodges it all and saves you, you are still going to be awoken in terror lol. I personally even feel this way about just sitting in it to "drive" it. I want emergency manual controls no matter what, computers are not perfect all the time. Its less about me thinking I'm better at driving than a computer and more I'm worried it might glitch at some point and need me to take over to avoid dying.

 

[macbetta]

I think you missed what I was saying. My point is that whatever you think you'd need to emergency steer or brake for a computer will eventually be better at all of that than you are. A car swerves at you from the opposite lane? Yeah, a computer should be able to react to that faster, analyze where to move to and the ground conditions, and then move out of the way. Or, what if it can't move? Maybe it deploys some safety mechanism before impact since it knows it's coming? Whatever you think you can do, a computer can do faster. It just needs the necessary inputs and programming. In time, this will happen. Like Thanos, it's inevitable.

No way man, I'm not implying I'm smart or faster than a computer at these things, let alone a future one. The real point is that there's more variables than you are considering when it comes to driving. I do not want to be in a car that has no manual controls when some dude gets road rage and decides to take it out on me. Or be in it when it has a bug or glitch and accidentally kills me lol. I'm all for the tech, don't get me wrong, bring it on, what's already available is super cool and impressive! I just think there needs to be emergency controls for you know... emergencies

 

[GeoStructural]

Right, because nobody every complained about style over function when Steve Jobs was alive. If this report was about Musk and Tesla everyone here would be hailing him as a visionary genius and Apple a boring company that does nothing but incremental updates to existing products. 🙄

No! I have always tried to remain impartial, I praise Steve for his vision and will, but also criticize him for his shortcomings, he was very much in tune with Jony Ive in terms of design, and also verbalized his opposition to user customization, the App Store, larger screens in phones and tablets, and the use of styluses, all of which the market proved to favor.

 

[CarlJ]

It’s not a car as we know it. It’s a service.

To understand what Apple is aiming for, we have to wipe clear what we’ve known about cars and look to how the newer generation are using cars — at least in cities. Personal transport is becoming a service. In a world where Uber is ubiquitous, fewer and fewer young people are getting their drivers’ licenses because they can pull out their phone and within 5 minutes there’s a car pulling up, taking them to where they need to go. Those of us who grew up in a car era with the romance of driving one and owning one and washing it in the driveway — we are not the target, unless we want to be. Apple is looking way ahead.

Yep. All the people saying, "WTF, no steering wheel, I can't drive this!" are missing the point. If you want to see the kind of cars that Apple is looking to build, go look at the autonomous rideshare cars in Westworld. Seriously. It's something that takes you from point A to point B, it's not something you drive in the traditional sense. It pulls up, the curbside glass doors open up, you climb in, and off you go to the destination, which you already entered when you put in a request for the car on the app. More like a tiny trackless trolley than a car.

 

[urnotl33t]

Apple needs somebody willing to say No to hundreds of good ideas so they only have a few Great ideas.

They did. He died the day after iOS 6 was released.

 

[svish]

If ever such a car comes out, it will not be happening any time in the near future.

 

[pcote]

It’s not a car as we know it. It’s a service.

To understand what Apple is aiming for, we have to wipe clear what we’ve known about cars and look to how the newer generation are using cars — at least in cities. Personal transport is becoming a service. In a world where Uber is ubiquitous, fewer and fewer young people are getting their drivers’ licenses because they can pull out their phone and within 5 minutes there’s a car pulling up, taking them to where they need to go. Those of us who grew up in a car era with the romance of driving one and owning one and washing it in the driveway — we are not the target, unless we want to be. Apple is looking way ahead.

My thoughts as well.

When I saw the newer CarPlay with the gauge cluster, it came to my mind that the reason for this is to allow the user to enter any car (or service car) and set the car to the user’s preferences. For example: temperature, light, music, seating, name it.

In our current era, it will eventually make less and less sense to continue owning a car in a city. Here in Montréal, we have a lot of car sharing options which all works pretty well already. This market also saw significant growth in the recent years.

Apple Car as a service makes a lot of sense.

 

[Shalev Lazarof]

the Pod? (4 - 2- 1 seats options, fully autonomus)

 

[jole]

People here act as self driving cars would be sci-fi. Please wake up to 2022, head over to San Francisco or Phoenix and hop in for a drive: they are driving around the cities today.

Or search for reports on Waymo and Cruise rides on YouTube.

 

[Sabon]

Then they are talking about a car that is over $200,000 USD and not something that 90+% of the people reading this website let alone the general public will be able to afford.

They won't be building the car for us. It will be for people like Jony Ive and friends with the hope that enough other people can afford and like the styling and features that Jony Ive and Apple want in the car.

The higher the price of the car the less likely it will ever be built. And considering that they have spent, what, fifteen years playing around with the idea (even before rumors were announced) and probably at least $4 BILLIONS dollars in employee payroll so far with nothing to show for it, if not double that...

They must expect to make a profit off of all of this if they put it into production. So then how much do you charge for it? $1 million USD or more. And then you have cut down the number of people that can afford it even more and made it less likely you are going to get a return on your investment.

So maybe you start with a more expensive car and <u>eventually</u> get down to a $200,000 USD car? Again, never a car that I will be able to afford. Stupid me for not having the rights skills while being in the right place at the right time. Oh well, I'll just have to love my Tesla Model Y with Full Self Driving instead.

 

[CarlJ]

Then they are talking about a car that is over $200,000 USD and not something that 90+% of the people reading this website let alone the general public will be able to afford.

It wouldn't be the first time that the first version of something is priced way above what people think of as comparable products (the first iPhones were way more expensive than flip phones - which were not really comparable, though people compared them anyway), only reasonably available to a limited audience, and fairly limited in what they could do. But then they iterate, again and again, and the tech improves, or the prices come down, or both. No, iPhone prices have not especially come down, but their capabilities have soared. But look at something like SSDs - at the start, they had tiny capacities and cost a fortune. Now they're huge and pretty much every computer uses them.

They won't be building the car for us. It will be for people like Jony Ive and friends with the hope that enough other people can afford and like the styling and features that Jony Ive and Apple want in the car.

I don't think they're building for Ive (they may be taking a lot of design cues from him), they're designing for the future. Not next year, not three years from now, but for the coming decades.

... and probably at least $4 BILLIONS dollars in employee payroll so far with nothing to show for it, if not double that...

Who can say what they have to show for it? It's common to end up with interesting fallout when pushing technology on some big project - look at all the influences the NASA spaceflight programs have had on technology since the 60's. But since Apple still doesn't even acknowledge they're working on a car, we don't know what influences it's had on other products.

So maybe you start with a more expensive car and <u>eventually</u> get down to a $200,000 USD car?

BTW, you can do actual underlining on the forum, but not using HTML.

 

[3xBoom]

Imagine if it comes with an iconic Notch.

I am not buying anything without a Notch! Period! Apple should patent Notch, and every Apple product from now on should have it, or at least it should be a well-priced upgrade option. Even better, it should not have any function beyond the esthetics. In Notch we trust!

 

[robd003]

What an over engineered mess Titan is

No one in their right mind is going to get into a vehicle they cannot manually control if necessary

And: whoever spent the resources to do that polished video with drones footage of the car driving through empty roads of Montana should be fired

Where can I see the video?