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Disagree. I think it will happen much sooner than you realize. Waymo and Cruise are basically already self-driving within geofence, and the advancement made by Tesla in that area is improving by leaps and bounds with every update. Full self-driving is definitely coming.
I'm more excited about a full out network so you don't have to sit at dumb lights for 30s-1m with nobody on the cross street the entire time. And making the stupid left needs to yield rule obsolete. It would just do the cars in time order.
 
As long as there are non-self-driving cars on the road, self-driving cars will never work well. If all the cars on the road could communicate with each other to keep safe driving distances, change lanes safely and brake properly, then I'd be all-in for a self-driving car. But the wild card of course is the increasing number of people on the road who drive as if they're in a GTA simulation. As long as they have the wheel, self-driving cars are pretty much pointless. Current computers aren't very good at dealing with recklessness.
I've said this since self driving was mentioned. And the other problem is the reckless drivers will be the last to adopt self without being forced because of their freedom to drive.
 
Uh oh.

Well I predicted there will be no self driving. Not from Apple, not from anyone else.

Now I predict this will be scaled back to zero, a la AirPower.

Why?

0/ This is just a salvage/damage control operation at this point. The grand vision is gone. They can't cancel it now because it'll crater the stock. Instead, they'll wait for the stock to crater for other reasons, then announce they have to "refocus".
1/ The era of cheap money is over and Apple will be forced to focus on core competency as competition heats up in every area.
2/ Bean counters at Apple finally wake up to the fact that the car they are making is not going to disrupt the incumbents in any meaningful way and no one is going to buy an Apple car when MB is making way better cars for less money.
 
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I like that “scaled back” means “oh, it will have a steering wheel and pedals”, in Bloomberg’s clickbaity parlance.

Talk about scaling back..

Of course it will need a decade-worth of real world data before enabling full autonomy in city traffic…meanwhile highways are a good place to start.
 
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Apple car + Siri + Apple Maps = crapshoot as to whether you’ll arrive at your correct destination 🤪😂

You know that's getting tired, right? Apple Maps navigation is exceptional in our area (BC, Canada). The only gripe that I have is it continues to insist on U-turns at intersections, which is not legal in our area.
 
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I'm more excited about a full out network so you don't have to sit at dumb lights for 30s-1m with nobody on the cross street the entire time. And making the stupid left needs to yield rule obsolete. It would just do the cars in time order.

That all sounds wonderful -- but I don't expect to live to see it unfortunately (not in the US anyhow)
 
Apple will use the cloud for some AI processing, and the company is considering a remote command center that could assist drivers and control cars from afar during emergencies.
This scares me for multiple reasons. What happens if the cloud is unreachable for whatever reason? Will it still function? What if you're on the highway and cuts out? Will it be smart enough to at least get you to the side of the road safely?

What if this is hacked? Can a malicious person/group take control of thee car, steal it, etc.?

Also, since this will be an ongoing thing and not a one-time purchase, I expect to see a subscription for this. And probably a high cost one. Before anyone says it, yes I know, if I don't want it, don't get it. Duh.
Apple aiming to sell a consumer model for under $100,000.
So $99,999.99? Seriously though, a bit too expensive for me. Probably cool as hell, but I don't make that kind of money. If someone else can and wants to buy it, more power to you.

I have to wonder what kind of repairability and upgradability it'll have? Will it be like other Apple products where if you break one small piece, you have to buy a whole new car or something? Will people be able to upgrade the stereos and speakers after the fact, or again have to buy a whole new car?
 
All the R&D spent on (rumored) self-driving.

That's the point, though. People forget that sometimes. They think in terms of finished ready-to-use products, but often R&D is just that... research and experimentation. I applaud Apple for investing heavily into this. It doesn't matter that they don't deliver a car in the end. Their work will translate into better car-based products in other ways.
 
The BS they are pulling with their current products and not supporting very simple enhanced features on last-gen iPhones makes me very hesitant to even buy an Apple Car (if I had the money). Next thing you know you get a firmware upgrade and suddenly not allowed to honk the horn for more than 3 seconds due to the new honk sound with iCar OS 2.0 or because not equipped with the newest latest M10 Chip the follow up Apple Car has.
 
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Disagree. I think it will happen much sooner than you realize. Waymo and Cruise are basically already self-driving within geofence, and the advancement made by Tesla in that area is improving by leaps and bounds with every update. Full self-driving is definitely coming.
People are easily fooled by Enron Musk’s big promises.

“Self-driving” as it is today, is an image processor reading instructions from a database, it does not “make decisions”. That’s why it appears to improve despite being on fixed hardware. FSD is a very distant thing, it’s doubtful it can even be done at all.

It might also help if it stopped causing car crashes and swerving towards pedestrians.
 
I'm more excited about a full out network so you don't have to sit at dumb lights for 30s-1m with nobody on the cross street the entire time. And making the stupid left needs to yield rule obsolete. It would just do the cars in time order.

What do you mean by "left needs to yield" rule? Left turn after oncoming traffic has passed? If you didn't yield, you'd be a pancake. Can you clarify?

Here in Canada, we have excellent "advance" left-turn signals, and most intersections have induction sensors in the road to control the traffic lights. I always shake my head at drivers afraid to pull up to to the stop line. Are they completely oblivious that the ring in the road is what triggers the lights? Your car needs to be on top of that ring!
 
Sorry to disappoint you but there has never been a plan to build a car. Not a complete car. The plan has always been to provide services that are in Apple’s wheelhouse like self driving and enhanced CarPlay. They showed you the last part at the developer conference. Now it’s going to be the only part for at least a while. Car manufacturers like GM have hinted that they may have it available in 2025 models. Sorry, but that’s it.
 
One other problem: if it has no steering wheel, brakes, or other manual driving capability, Apple will seriously need to update Apple Maps. Several places I go to says where the place is, but not the parking lot or driveway. How will the car know where to turn in and how to get back out?
The sad reality is. We are going to have to rely on Siri.
 
I've seen working concept cars with joystick control. No steering wheel or pedals needed.
The point wasn't that they were going to replace the steering wheel with another control. It was that the automation would do all the driving and you would have not controls. That seemed like a fantasy concept when it came up. Not at all realistic in the near future.
 
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That's the point, though. People forget that sometimes. They think in terms of finished ready-to-use products, but often R&D is just that... research and experimentation. I applaud Apple for investing heavily into this. It doesn't matter that they don't deliver a car in the end. Their work will translate into better car-based products in other ways.
I understand doing R&D, but this was a crazy amount that (rumored) went into the Apple Car.

I remember rumors that the amount spent by Apple for the self-driving car R&D was more than the Mac, iPhone, iPad, and AW, combined. Increases of billions of dollars to a R&D budget that was only in the hundreds of millions prior.

Only to have come up with zip (again, rumored).
 
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