Apple Car History - Where Did Development Go Wrong?

[MacRumors]

After spending a decade developing an autonomous car, Apple this week decided it was time to pull an AirPower and shut down the project. The Apple Car is no more, and Apple is no longer planning to release an Apple-branded electric vehicle.

The hundreds of engineers and car experts who were working on the vehicle will be laid off or distributed to other teams within Apple, including the AI team. The Apple Car is one of the longest running rumors that we've been reporting on without a product materializing, so we thought we'd take a look back at some of the key moments in the Apple Car's history to provide some insight into what went wrong.

2015 - Early Development

In early 2015, a van leased to Apple surfaced on the streets of Concord, California with LiDAR equipment on its roof. Apple had been using vans like this for mapping purposes, but the hardware looked similar to hardware being used by companies testing self-driving software. This one vehicle sighting ended up sparking a slew of rumors.

An imagined Apple Car concept​

That same month, an unnamed Apple employee told Business Insider that Apple would "give Tesla a run for its money," and Financial Times claimed that Apple was recruiting automotive technology and vehicle design experts to work in a "top-secret research lab." The Wall Street Journal then broke a story with in-depth details on the hundreds of employees working on an Apple-branded minivan-like electric vehicle.

There were a number of other key headlines and details shared in 2015.

• Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly approved the self-driving car project in 2014.
• At the time, the project was led by Steve Zadesky, Apple VP of Product Design and a former Ford engineer. It was overseen by Dan Riccio, Apple's SVP of hardware engineering.
• In 2015, Bloomberg said that Apple was hoping to produce the car by 2020. Later, the WSJ said it could be ready as soon as 2019.
• Apple was said to be meeting with Magna Steyr, BMW, and automotive companies as it sought a partner.
• The Guardian published a report that Apple wasn't just working on an electric vehicle, it was working on an autonomous vehicle. The report also said that Apple had prototypes ready for testing, which wasn't accurate.
• Former General Motors CEO Dan Akerson said that Apple was underestimating the difficulty of operating in the car business. "They have no idea what they're getting into," he said.
• Apple hired a ton of vehicle experts from automotive companies and from companies with expertise in autonomous vehicles.
• Apple's "secret" car headquarters were located in Sunnyvale, California, close to the Infinite Loop campus.

2016 and 2017 - First Signs of Strife Lead to Major Upheaval

The first hints of trouble with the Apple Car project surfaced in January 2016, with Apple Car lead Steve Zadesky departing the company. Around this time, Apple registered several domain names, including apple.car and apple.auto.

Former Apple SVP of technologies Bob Mansfield came out of retirement to head up the project, and under his direction, rumors suggested that Apple was focusing on an autonomous driving system with the aim of partnering with a car manufacturer in the future. Apple kept aggressively hiring, and at this time, split development into the hardware for the car and the software that would run on it.

Another Apple Car concept from Motor Trend​

With the transition to Mansfield's leadership, hundreds of employees were fired or reassigned, and in late 2016, there was a major upheaval. Apple "abandoned" plans to build its own vehicle and gave Mansfield's team a 2017 deadline to prove the feasibility of a self-driving system.

In early 2017, white Lexus RX450h SUVs outfitted with LiDAR equipment and piloted by Apple employees were spotted in the Bay Area, and Apple has used these vehicles to test its autonomous driving systems up until now. Apple was also rumored to be testing its self-driving technology at a facility in Arizona.

Apple at this time was also working on building an autonomous shuttle in partnership with Volkswagen to ferry employees to the Infinite Loop campus, but that was nixed.

Tim Cook made the unusual decision to confirm that Apple was working on autonomous driving. "We're focusing on autonomous systems," Cook said. "It's a core technology that we view as very important." He went on to say that it was the "mother of all AI projects," describing it as "o... Click here to read rest of article

Article Link: Apple Car History - Where Did Development Go Wrong?

 

[arkitect]

Former General Motors CEO Dan Akerson said that Apple was underestimating the difficulty of operating in the car business. "They have no idea what they're getting into," he said.

Seems he was right.

 

[JPack]

It's ok, Apple still sells the Mac Pro wheels for $699.

But really, Apple was in over their heads on this project. Making electronics is different from heavy industry. A car isn't an iPhone on wheels, as Foxconn would have you believe. You have huge logistics and supply challenges. Is Apple going to build their own battery factories and cargo ships like BYD? Because to stay competitive, that's least Apple would have to do.

 

[Joe The Dragon]

Well who was willing to pay apple prices for an car? and be locked into apple only service for any issue?

 

[zach-coleman]

It went wrong from moment one, assuming this was ever real. It was never smart for Apple to get into this business. They would either have to put in a ridiculous amount of infrastructure effort or completely trust a third party to handle it all for them. Would they contract out showrooms? Flat out do complete third party dealers? Where would you test drive the cars, the parking lot of a mall outside an Apple Store? None of these seem wise in order to add a low volume low margin product to their lineup of mostly devices that play in the $800-2500 space.

 

[AF_APPLETALK]

As of now, the ‌Apple Car‌ joins two other canceled Apple projects - the AirPower charging mat nixed in 2019 and the Apple TV set that was rumored for several years right around 2014.

I'm going to go ahead and speculate that the canceled Apple TV set eventually became the 27" Studio Display.

It's a great and handsome product, but the featureset really doesn't make sense for a desktop monitor. Why else have all that extra hardware in it?

---

I'm also going to say that this is a fun look-back. I clearly remember reading the articles and comments about Apple Car on this very site. I was always a skeptic about this being a good market for Apple to get into, though I'd have to fish out whatever account I was using at that point to see what I wrote. Nice to close the loop here on MR.

 

[Realityck]

After spending a decade developing an autonomous car, Apple this week decided it was time to pull an AirPower and shut down the project. The Apple Car is no more, and Apple is no longer planning to release an Apple-branded electric vehicle.

I never thought that Apple was designing a car, rather developing the software systems to operate a car to several automotive manufacturers. In a more limited fashion I believed they could have sold automotive sub systems to automotive industry. Manufacturing their own car was too much risk legally and financially to take on.

 

[anthogag]

Focusing on an “autonomous car” is where they went wrong, wrong from the beginning, then they chickened-out.

 

[TimHalfCooked]

Where Did Development Go Wrong?​

went wrong when tim cook was made ceo and decided his legacy was going to be made by strapping an iPad to your face.

 

[bradman83]

Apple is a computer/consumer electronics hardware and software design company. That's what they're good at. The iPod, iPhone, iPad, Watch, TV, and accessories are all natural extensions of Apple's original Mac business.

Cars are a whole different beast. They can literally cause physical harm if something goes wrong. The distribution networks are entirely different than anything Apple sells today, and people take a whole different set of factors into consideration with a car than they do a computer or other gadget. That's not to say Apple couldn't have been successful, but a car is so outside of Apple's wheelhouse and areas of expertise that it would be one big distraction.

 

[DBZmusicboy01]

What’s Tim Cooking?

 

[erikkfi]

Apple Car was a victim of the 2016-2018 hype around fully self-driving vehicles being right around the corner even though they're not here (and no, any car some dingus is selling with "Full Self-Driving" as a trademarked feature doesn't count). They should've just made a beautiful, unique electric vehicle with a profit margin they could live with, and then iterated from there. Look at AVP. Is it perfect right now? No. Is the second version going to embarrass it? Yes. But Apple released it and they seem to be selling against their targets just fine.

After all this money thrown into chasing a dream that is still a long way off, killing it was probably the right business move, which means the real mistakes were back nearer toward the beginning.

 

[_Refurbished_]

What’s interesting is that AI is the way forward to an autonomous future. If you’ve seen the Tesla software running on AI, and it’s only a year old, it’s mind-boggling.

 

[TracesOfArsenic]

Apple can't even develop a stable operating system or an AI that works reasonably. How on earth were they going to be capable of creating a car that could kill people when something goes wrong? Cancelling this might be the smartest thing Crook has done.

 

[TimHalfCooked]

Apple can't even develop a stable operating system or an AI that works reasonably. How on earth were they going to be capable of creating a car that could kill people when something goes wrong? Cancelling this might be the smartest thing Crook has done.

think about all the spare parts they will now have to make a new macbook pro

 

[JPack]

I never thought that Apple was designing a car, rather developing the software systems to operate a car to several automotive manufacturers. In a more limited fashion I believed they could have sold automotive sub systems to automotive industry. Manufacturing their own car was too much risk legally and financially to take on.

It's clear Apple was trying to make a car. Apple had Steve Zadesky, a mechanical engineer lead the car team in 2015.

Apple hired countless battery, powertrain, design, and chassis experts and executives from Ford, Tesla, BMW, Samsung, and even Lamborghini. It wasn't until later after the project went downhill, Apple narrowed the scope and tried to make something to compete with NVIDIA.

 

[TracesOfArsenic]

think about all the spare parts they will now have to make a new macbook pro

It was probably made from a spaghetti of excess "permanent" lightning cables

 

[AlexESP]

“Apple this week decided it was time to pull an AirPower”. Please, stop. AirPower was embarrassing because it was an announced product that was cancelled; this is just an internal project that was explored and ultimately they decided not to go ahead with it. Just like dozens of projects we’re not aware of.

 

[jz0309]

making cars is very different from making computing devices.
they changed the goal far too often, fell for the lidar hype (that market is still struggling) and then, while other Apple products are basically the same for each region, but in automotive, it does not.
Will be interesting to see if there is still something coming out of this, eg patent licensing/sale ...

 

[ericwn]

Finally an end to that nonsense. Sadly also an unemployed designer making fake designs for articles solely based on the hot air from the rumour press.

 

[AlastorKatriona]

Where did it go wrong? With the decision to even think about such a distraction.

 

[azentropy]

I'm going to go ahead and speculate that the canceled Apple TV set eventually became the 27" Studio Display.

It's a great and handsome product, but the featureset really doesn't make sense for a desktop monitor. Why else have all that extra hardware in it?

More likely it was the basis for a 27" iMac. The Apple TV set was long dead before that and they were focusing on larger OLED displays.

 

[jz0309]

“Apple this week decided it was time to pull an AirPower”. Please, stop. AirPower was embarrassing because it was an announced product that was cancelled; this is just an internal project that was explored and ultimately they decided not to go ahead with it. Just like dozens of projects we’re not aware of.

was going to say the same, Apple never announced they were working on a car unlike Airpower ...

What would also be interesting is a recap of the Apple car rumors that were spread by Kuo, Gurman and Prosser ...

 

[AndiG]

This is a very simple question

Apple has turned into an evil corpse company and no other company wants to work with Apple. Apple wants to dictate everything from the price it pays for manufacturing to the conditions it sets if another company like BMW wants to use an AppleOS.

But Apple itself can't make a car. It has no idea about a chassis and underestimates the knowledge of companies like Porsche/Audi/BMW.

In the meantime, more and more cars are installing Android OS or its AOSP version without Google services. Apple has lost and one of the main reasons is its arrogance.
Apple has tormented its customers for over a decade with its MFI program and other stumbling blocks - this is now part of the receipt.

 

[Fuzzball84]

It's not about where development went wrong.. but where the industry went wrong.

We now have electric cars that are ending up as scrap... that completely negates any environmental positives.

The whole industry and consumers need to really think about this hard.

I know one person who has been through 4 electric vehicles in 10 years. It's atrocious, an environmental catastrophe.