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If it’s anything like iPhones...Why buy a car you will never own or be able to modify without Apple’s proprietary parts?

How’s is that different from the current car offerings? Does Tesla not use all proprietary parts?
 
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Good. Personally I don't think Apple should be building a car themselves at all. They're starting from 100+ years behind the curve.

Far better would be to partner with a group of existing manufacturers to integrate their stuff into the cars made by people who actually know how to make cars.
Those people who "know how to make cars" were utterly showed up by Tesla, a startup. At this point I'm convinced the only reason they've all stayed in business so long is lobbying, protectionism, and anticompetitive practices. Anyone here remember Tucker?

(and no, I don't own any TSLA except for small portions in ETFs, cause imo the price is impossible right now)
 
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Tesla has over 2 billion miles recorded and user data. Apple doesn't have ANY data if they're trying to do self-driving which I'm sure they're aiming for.
This is incorrect.

Designing and testing an autonomous vehicle is not some lawless free-for-all.

Like all companies testing autonomous vehicles on public roads, Apple is required to have provisional approval from the California Department of Motor Vehicles to conduct their road tests.

There are specific requirements such as logging the number of vehicles, dates and number of hours operated, number of driver interventions, and much more. Separate detailed reports must be presented for any accident involving one of these test vehicles even if it is another party's fault.

This data is tabulated and reported on the California DMV website for the public to review. Some of these reports are downloadable (Excel spreadsheets the last time I checked).

Apple has logged small amount of time in testing autonomous vehicles over the past few years. There was a gap of about 6-8 months at one point when there was no testing being conducted by Apple on public roads; this gap seemed to coincide with some sort of project management shakeup.

Note that the aforementioned reports also indicate when a company has done zero testing for a given time period (generally monthly).

Note that one company Nuro (based in Mountain View) has already received permission from authorities to commence commercial services this month. Again this is not a free-for-all. The initial scope of operation is heavily limited: weather conditions, hours of the day, specific streets in a handful of cities, maximum vehicle speed of 35 mph, etc.

Alphabet's Waymo division has way more hours logged than Tesla. Much of their early testing was done in conventional gas-powered vehicles (they still do extensive testing in Chrysler Pacifica minivans). At one point Waymo had a fleet of their own electric vehicles, the Firefly but locally referred to as "bubble cars"; their shape resembled Volkswagen Beetles. If I recall correctly, those cars didn't have steering wheels but instead operated via a joystick. The Firefly fleet was retired in 2017.

None of this is new or surprising to anyone who has lived or worked near Cupertino for the past 5+ years. There are likely 30+ companies doing autonomous vehicle testing in the northwestern area of Santa Clara County (Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Los Altos, Cupertino), not just startups but many of the big auto manufacturers as well.
 
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The profit margins on Cars are no where near what Apple already has on electronics. Unless they charge hundreds of thousands of dollars for one.
 
autonomous car as well as an Apple Car is several years off. Government insurance companies as well as underwriters have to all agree
 
Tesla is already ahead.

By that time, Tesla owns the market with full self driving software. Not even including the crazy new ideas Tesla is cooking up in the labs for the next 5 years.
And those lab ideas will be prematurely hype-announced next year. But will be your typical Elon Musk vaporware for numerous years to come. Overpromise and under-deliver..... that's Elon Musk for ya.
 
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And those lab ideas will be prematurely hype-announced next year. But will be your typical Elon Musk vaporware for numerous years to come. Overpromise and under-deliver..... that's Elon Musk for ya.

Model 3 was announced to have 215 miles of range. It has 263 miles. Long range is rated at 310 miles but Consumer Reports got 350 miles. https://insideevs.com/news/400316/tesla-model-3-range-test-350-miles/

Model Y was announced to have 300 miles of range. It has 326 miles.

"Overpromise and under-deliver..." yeah ok. Try again.

EDIT: actually don't try again. Just saw that you've been bashing Elon time and time again since 2015 on these forums. No point in continuing this conversation so see ya.
 
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They will have to do Tesla style dealers and galleries with vending machine vehicles.
The amount of space an Apple car dealership would need, as in terms of how normal dealerships are spread out, would be staggering. The service department would be as large as most normal size dealers.

I am curious if Apple has lobbyists helping Tesla get to the point of being able to sell vehicles in every state just so the precedent is already set with laws in place by the time they announce their vehicles.

Always fascinated with the behind the curtains deals and money changing hands that most folks don't pay attention to because of the show happening in front of them.
 
A self-driving car by Apple. Hopefully the team responsible for Siri is not working on this...

But seriously, ya'll that want a self-driving car are aloofly suicidal.

Self-driving cars are like disarmament in the US: until laws are passed where EVERYONE is disarmed, I won't be one who isn't armed.

It simply isn't safe, and I'm not relying on government agencies to protect me, neither on the road nor taking a jog around my neighborhood.

Until there is an automated, air-traffic-control-like system like in Minority Report, I just ain't doing it. And even then, I want control of my vehicle. Period.
 
No way. There's way too much competition for them to wait that long. The only chance they have is if they mass produce before other manufactures cannibalize EV market share
Apple doesn’t need high market share in the auto space for it to be a viable business for them.

“So Apple would only need a 2% share of this market to be the size of their "iPhone business”

 
And those lab ideas will be prematurely hype-announced next year. But will be your typical Elon Musk vaporware for numerous years to come. Overpromise and under-deliver..... that's Elon Musk for ya.
Not bad for being the richest person in the world.
 
What are you talking about? Tesla already has vehicles with 400+ miles of range and quicker than the Mach-E, and the next generation Plaid vehicles should put a massive gap between it and the Mach-E. Ford doesn't even try to compare the Mach-E against Tesla's vehicles because they'd lose that comparison so soundly.
250 miles in the real world.
 
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In terms of real data and human hours logged, Tesla has more than Waymo.

My Tesla just last week Friday uploaded 400mb of data to their servers.
This is mine for the past 2 days. It showed the 6th and 7th added together of uploaded and downloaded info.

Screen Shot 2021-01-08 at 1.09.06 AM.png
 
BMW came out with the i3 in 2013 but they are still struggling to convert the rest of their line-up to electric.
It takes longer than people think so 5 years for Apple is optimistic.
But BMW will have 20 models in the next 2 years and Tesla won't have a market empty of competition for much longer.
VW have the eGolf, Audi the eTron, Mercedes have the EQ, Jaguar have the ipace. There's also the Nissan leaf which is very good. I don't know anything about the US models.
The market will be flooded with electric cars in 2 years.
Volvo/Polestar are at least as advanced as Tesla in self-driving tech and they will be a major player as they make good cars and they are relatively cheap.
Amazon have a self driving 4 seater in the works.
The infrastructure has made enormous leaps in the last 2 years and a lot of hotels here seem to have taken the opportunity of lockdown to add charging points. I was checking recently and I was amazed at how many charge points we now have in Europe in hotel chains.
And I include Tesla 150kwh charging points, often 8 at a time.
I confess to being a fan of the model X and I think the Tesla are a little bit special, but the market is going to explode with offers soon and I find the Tesla share price hard to understand.
The biggest growth market in tech is going to be cars so it makes sense that Apple will need to be in to compete with the likes of Google.
Before long you will be in a car that will recognise not only the car next to you but the identity of everyone walking by on the pavement. Cars are going to be intricately bound to your phone.
Car data is the next rich data stream waiting to be mined and if they let Google get a hold on this by themselves Apple will not be able to maintain a strong position in any market.
 
Do people think that Apple is actually going to release an actual car, or just a CarPlay like standard, that if a car manufacture gets certified or approved, it'll run Apple's self driving software? i.e. BMW's new 3-Series supports Apple Drive, and all you have to do is plug in your phone and it'll control the car.
Much more likely what you are saying.
 
I'm sure Apple is also cooking up crazy new ideas. On top of that, Apple won't have the cash problem that Tesla did when it first started. Just sayin'. :cool:
It is not about cash. Self-driving capability depend very much on the amount of data you have in order to create a sufficiently smart system. Tesla already has millions of cars collecting data in order to improve the neural engine capabilities. It is like having millions of beta testers "working" on the streets. Apple may have all the money it may need but there are some things that can't be just bought. In addition, regardless of how much money you have, you still need time to ramp up production, build facilities, find suppliers, train workers and so forth and everything should be done with the famous Apple secrecy. Even if Apple buys Hyunday (market capitalization of over 49 billions $), they still would need various years to build new machinery, adapt some of the existing manufacturing plants, do extensive testing, obtain approvals from many regulators, crash tests and so forth. If you put into the equation, Apple usual care to every single detail and component, there may be years of delay. By the time the car is ready for commercialization, the battery technology for example would be already outdated and this is where Tesla would still have the lead.

Unless Apple has developed a never before seen revolutionary battery technology which is years ahead of Tesla and other competitors (and is cheaper to produce!), and their autonomous driving system is at least at the level of what Tesla currently can offer, I cant see how Apple can short the distance with Tesla in the next decade.
 
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Those people who "know how to make cars" were utterly showed up by Tesla, a startup. At this point I'm convinced the only reason they've all stayed in business so long is lobbying, protectionism, and anticompetitive practices. Anyone here remember Tucker?

(and no, I don't own any TSLA except for small portions in ETFs, cause imo the price is impossible right now)

Most vehicle manufacturers were doing just fine. Not every consumer is in the market for a luxury vehicle. What Tesla has done only proves there’s room for competition in the luxury automobile segment.
 
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