And imagine... 5% of the reporting was accurate.Such a rollercoaster of headlines for this Apple Car over the years.
Yes, no, yes, delayed, no, definitely no, maybe, confirmed yes...
Just hope it happens, one day
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Car Project Loses Three Key Engineers
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Too late to merge with Tesla. Apple could have bought Tesla for $60 billion a couple years ago. Now Tesla costs $1 trillion.
So, all three of those guys left for companies that have something to do with "aviation". Yeah, I can see what their job descriptions are, and I know what I am about to say is silly but my innovation-loving heart wishes that this is some kind of indication that Apple Car is not exactly another four-wheeled auto intended for drive on bituminous roads only.
True, but if some of these 1000+ engineers think that the project is stuck, and it is question of time before Tim decides to shut it down and lay off the vast majority of people working on it, then there is reasonable to look for other opportunities when there are still a lot of open positions in other engineering/tech companies. I dont know what Apple is cooking, but we have been hearing rumors about this project for 5 years and there is nothing tangible that could suggest that Apple is anywhere near putting into production an Apple Car or whatever this project is. At the same time, Tesla, Lucid, Rivian and the old school OEMs dont stay still. A car is not a smartwatch. You cant hide it from the world for much time, and by the time you reveal it publicly, you will still need a few years to build a factory, ramp production at larger scale, etc. Apple traditional secrecy for new project may work for a phone, a table, or a computer, but it does not work for a project of this magnitude. They will either reveal something very very soon, or shut it down entirely IMO.
Jumping from smartphones, watches, tablets and laptops to flying vehicles is something that even Apple is not able to achieve without changing it entire business philosophy and strategy. It is like if Ford starts to design and sell smartphones and build its own SoCs. It is different universe, not just a simple side project.
Imagine being a car owner in 1901 and you decide that you want to drive coast to coast across the USA.
Outside of major cities gasoline isn’t available, highways are 15-25 years in the future, most “roads” are 2 wagon ruts in ground, no (dedicated) repair shops, no way to contact anyone for assistance if you break down or run out of gas and you’re in the middle of nowhere…..
In short, cars needed an entire infrastructure before they became practical. You could build a wonderful, reliable car and not be able to drive it more than a few miles from your house, no matter how great the car was.
Trying to make the car do everything so that it can be self driving is needlessly expensive. Imagine having to launch your own personal gps satellite, one that’s not compatible for anyone else, so you can have the car plan a route. You also need accurate digital roadmaps to get from point A to point B. Hope you have lots of access to extremely current road data, and the programming skill to turn that into actionable data.
If self driving cars that can work extremely reliably in all weather and across all of at least North America then some type of universal system that everyone can use and help pay for needs to be started. I don’t think that anyones stand alone system will really work.
Outside of major cities gasoline isn’t available, highways are 15-25 years in the future, most “roads” are 2 wagon ruts in ground, no (dedicated) repair shops, no way to contact anyone for assistance if you break down or run out of gas and you’re in the middle of nowhere…..
In short, cars needed an entire infrastructure before they became practical. You could build a wonderful, reliable car and not be able to drive it more than a few miles from your house, no matter how great the car was.
Trying to make the car do everything so that it can be self driving is needlessly expensive. Imagine having to launch your own personal gps satellite, one that’s not compatible for anyone else, so you can have the car plan a route. You also need accurate digital roadmaps to get from point A to point B. Hope you have lots of access to extremely current road data, and the programming skill to turn that into actionable data.
If self driving cars that can work extremely reliably in all weather and across all of at least North America then some type of universal system that everyone can use and help pay for needs to be started. I don’t think that anyones stand alone system will really work.
If Siri is as effective in killing as it is with searches I don’t think it’s a problem.
Self-driving cars don't need to replace every car and use case right away (though they eventually will). You start with ridesharing in urban areas. That will reduce the desire to even own a car in many places. Many teens no longer aspire to get a car, or even a license, thanks to Uber and Lyft. Robotaxis will drop the cost of ridesharing even more. And there's no need to build out any infrastructure. Maps and charging stations are the easy part. Mass amounts of training data and good AI software will separate the winners from the losers.
It would still be a lot cheaper if a cities traffic control system told a car what was happening as far as traffic patterns and accidents and road closures instead of requiring the car to make those decisions once it gets close enough to detect a problem in every single smart car, especially if car manufacturer A has one method of detecting a problem and manufacturer B has a different one. All of the ‘smart‘ doesn’t need to be in the car, and economy of scale means that the system will eventually be cheaper if a centralized control is implemented.
Relying on a city traffic control system adds an additional point of failure (power outages) and threat vector for hackers. Plus, it does nothing to help cars deal with jay walkers and other pedestrians or areas without traffic control signals. Solve the general solution: a car should be able to drive on its own without outside input, just like a human.
Hopefully the project is not delayed due to multiple people leaving
Spot on analysis and dovetails with my observations working in Silicon Valley tech my entire career.
Normally I'd agree but Apple IS the company that people leave other companies for. So this news troubles me.
They should have focused on an Apple Race Car first !
1.) Hydraulic-assit Power Steering
2.) curb weight < 3300 lbs
3.) 50/50 weight distribution
4.) 3.6-liter square-design inline-6 NA ICE w/ an 8K RPM Redline
(300 hp @ 6250, 300 lb-ft @ 2750)
5.) 6-speed manual transmission
6.) custom Lightweight Trailer Hitch, for hooking up an AirStream
If Apple, OR really anyone, made a Sedan version of it, & priced it $20K USD above the Model 3, Tesla sales would stall-out, BIG time !
BMW was close to being there in 2005, but then they pivoted to chase the Chinese market, & screw'd themselves BIG time !
BTW, there is significant pent-up demand for what I've described.
Apple, OR really anyone, could use it as a First Step towards an EV.
Apple, OR really anyone, could have created a lot of Enthusiasm & learned a lot along the way.
But ... & there's always a but, they ALL chose to chase Tesla's Projected P/E instead.
Literally, YOU and no one else wants that monstrosity
They should have focused on an Apple Race Car first !
1.) Hydraulic-assit Power Steering
2.) curb weight < 3300 lbs
3.) 50/50 weight distribution
4.) 3.6-liter square-design inline-6 NA ICE w/ an 8K RPM Redline
(300 hp @ 6250, 300 lb-ft @ 2750)
5.) 6-speed manual transmission
6.) custom Lightweight Trailer Hitch, for hooking up an AirStream
If Apple, OR really anyone, made a Sedan version of it, & priced it $20K USD above the Model 3, Tesla sales would stall-out, BIG time !
BMW was close to being there in 2005, but then they pivoted to chase the Chinese market, & screw'd themselves BIG time !
BTW, there is significant pent-up demand for what I've described.
Apple, OR really anyone, could use it as a First Step towards an EV.
Apple, OR really anyone, could have created a lot of Enthusiasm & learned a lot along the way.
But ... & there's always a but, they ALL chose to chase Tesla's Projected P/E instead.
I don't think Apple is going to ever hire you after whatever this was.
An amusing picture/graphic for this article since the Apple Car allegedly has no steering wheel.
Sales say otherwise. Also they are going to be a massive energy provider and service in the future… it’s not all about cars.
That means some entity needs to build, or at least regulate some form of information network to allow cars to be aware of other cars. And all the cars on that local network must be able to identify and be prepared to react to non self driving cars which aren’t reporting their speed, direction, next turn(s) that are going to be in the traffic mix for a time. And I think a considerable amount of time.
And who is responsible if an accident DOES happen? Car makers aren’t going to want to be liable because brand X went cheap or was just unfortunate to buy a batch of sensors with some defect, software or otherwise that can misrepresent to other self driving cars an important aspect of its situation.
Independent self sufficient smart cars that are smart enough and connected enough to avoid the literal billions of situations that they will need to be aware of over even just a couple of months of traffic both in highly populated urban areas and in less populated areas are going to be expensive. Which means that a lot of people either buy a less capable self driving car or don’t buy into self driving at all. These people become a wild card factor for every smart car that needs to be aware of them.