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Apple to Charge Under $100,000 for Apple Car, Launch Planned for 2026

I was leaning towards team apple car isn’t real until that news about the iPhone charging that can wait for clean energy use happened. That felt pretty transparently just them opening an avenue to hook into data that will later be used for the car’s home charging, which will have the same feature.
 
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Personally, I am still in camp "Yeah right" on Apple ever selling a consumer focused car to the public. But I also used to make fun of their ARM chips being decent in a Mac, so obviously I know not about that of which I speak.
 
MacLawyer said:
Apple thinking the world is populated by the elites.
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Considering that our streets are filled with $70-80k gas guzzlers that soccer moms are driving all over town in, there are plenty of buyers with the cash. Remember Steve Jobs’ goal for the IPhone was to sell 1,000,000.
 
genovelle said:
Considering that our streets are filled with $70-80k gas guzzlers that soccer moms are driving all over town in, there are plenty of buyers with the cash. Remember Steve Jobs’ goal for the IPhone was to sell 1,000,000.
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That said, is there not a reason that $70-$80k gas guzzlers outsell $70-$80k EVs? Or do you believe that is due to supply only? I drive an $80k car, and I would not choose an EV yet because they are too inconvenient. I am fully aware of the differences in maintenance. But I need a car that I can suddenly take on a 1000 mile road trip and I don't feel like having long stops to fuel up where I might wind up waiting in a line. I don't think we are 5 years away from that changing.
 
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Man I am poor. My home cost 25% more than their 100k car. My new Nissan cost me 22k. Granted I don’t have a fancy car but it is top of the line in its range and gets 40mpg.

In Switzerland they were thinking of banning charging of electric vehicles because of electricity shortages.

This entire push to get everyone using electric cars has nothing to do with the environment. Lithium ion batteries are certainly not green and have a limited number of charge cycles and their capacity gets lower as they near end of life. So every 5 years or so you are going to be dumping huge lithium ion batteries in landfills not to mention most sources of electricity generation in most countries use greenhouse gases or some form of petroleum or coal.

Add to the dirty nature of electricity generation is the fact that you are charging a battery which loses a certain amount of energy in the process.

It is more efficient to use an internal combustion engine.

The problem is everyone wants a SUV or truck instead of a humble and efficient sedan that would serve most people transportation needs.

Until they can use a fuel cell and split water into hydrogen and Oxygen these electric cars are more trouble than they are worth. Electric engines are the future and far more reliable and less toxic fluids than internal combustion engines BUT Lithium ion batteries are an Achilles heel and kind of wreck any potential environmental benefits of the electric engine.

There is money to be made and converting people with internal combustion engines to electric vehicles is a HUGE market that can bring in ginormous profits. At the end of the day that is what all of this is about. The people selling these cars could care less about the environment.
 
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Maybe I am too old and have too much distrust of centralized control or vehicles connected to the internet.

I like my cars dumb or at least computers that simply help the engine run better and sensors that help me be safe. I like gps navigation. Beyond that the idea of an OS controlling every aspect of my vehicle and it being continuously connected to the internet sends chills down my spine.

I want to gas up and go and not worry about someone shutting my vehicle down or a corrupted update making my vehicle inoperable.
 
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Technerd108 said:
Man I am poor. My home cost 25% more than their 100k car. My new Nissan cost me 22k. Granted I don’t have a fancy car but it is top of the line in its range and gets 40mpg.

In Switzerland they were thinking of banning charging of electric vehicles because of electricity shortages.

This entire push to get everyone using electric cars has nothing to do with the environment. Lithium ion batteries are certainly not green and have a limited number of charge cycles and their capacity gets lower as they near end of life. So every 5 years or so you are going to be dumping huge lithium ion batteries in landfills not to mention most sources of electricity generation in most countries use greenhouse gases or some form of petroleum or coal.

Add to the dirty nature of electricity generation is the fact that you are charging a battery which loses a certain amount of energy in the process.

It is more efficient to use an internal combustion engine.

The problem is everyone wants a SUV or truck instead of a humble and efficient sedan that would serve most people transportation needs.

Until they can use a fuel cell and split water into hydrogen and Oxygen these electric cars are more trouble than they are worth. Electric engines are the future and far more reliable and less toxic fluids than internal combustion engines BUT Lithium ion batteries are an Achilles heel and kind of wreck any potential environmental benefits of the electric engine.

There is money to be made and converting people with internal combustion engines to electric vehicles is a HUGE market that can bring in ginormous profits. At the end of the day that is what all of this is about. The people selling these cars could care less about the environment.
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To your point about how non-environmentally friendly lithium batteries are, maybe part of Apple’s usp is a new type of battery tech that doesn’t pollute like lithium? Actually, if they just focused on this and just licensed the technology to other companies, that would be enough. Regardless, they have a lot of r&d into this, so we’ll see what comes out of it.

Interesting info on Switzerland — thanks for sharing — I will assume other countries might follow suit.
 
I think what Apple has planned here is similar to what it has planned for the VR headset, and frankly similar to what Tesla itself did with its cars. Start at the high end and work downwards over a few years time. For the VR headset, I think it’s a good strategy, because they need time to further refine the product, the software, get developers on board, prove the use-cases - and fortunately it’s still early for VR headsets, so I think they have enough breathing room that’ll work out fine.

However, for the car, it’s a different matter. By the time 2026 rolls around, there will not only be more ev options available, there will be more AFFORDABLE EV options available. So while Apple could certainly use the start-high approach here, I think it’s ill-advised. They should at least get the first car down to the 60-65000 range.

Additionally, let’s be honest, we won’t see this until 2027-8 at BEST. We’ll hear stories of delay after delay, as we have for other products. This is one major difference between Apple under Steve Jobs vs Apple under Tim Cook. Tim is clearly more methodical. I think Steve would have forced the VR out the door by now.

I think the interest in the car will be there. But the longer they take, the higher the expectations will become, and anything they do is likely to fall short of what people are expecting by then.
 
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Full self driving is a mirage, and all the players in the space have realized that it ain't easy. what Apple is proposing is level 3 highway driving, Honda and many other manufacturers will have level 3 highway driving in the coming years so Apple will not have a competitive advantage especially at the price point they are looking at. I think this entire project Titan was a miscalculation, the miscalculation was thinking they could achieve Full self driving autonomy on city streets.
 
Kierkegaarden said:
To your point about how non-environmentally friendly lithium batteries are, maybe part of Apple’s usp is a new type of battery tech that doesn’t pollute like lithium? Actually, if they just focused on this and just licensed the technology to other companies, that would be enough. Regardless, they have a lot of r&d into this, so we’ll see what comes out of it.

Interesting info on Switzerland — thanks for sharing — I will assume countries might follow suit.
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I doubt Apple is going to reinvent the wheel or battery in this case and if they did it would be an exclusive feature only available to Apple car users. They would never share any of their IP or technologies. It goes against a long history with Apple.

I wish you were right and they had patented a fuel cell that only needs distilled water to run. It would then make me want to save up for the rest of my life to maybe be able to afford one because it would be a game changer.

I didn’t even go into the mining industry that needs certain minerals and rare earths in the production of these batteries. Look up what is happening in Indonesia where they have a partnership with China to mine nickel. It is destroying small fishing communities and making it so the people can’t fish or breathe. And this is just one example.

With Europe and other industrialized nations where their electric grid is older and reliant on fossil fuels the capacity is already stretched thin and add thousands of vehicles charging every night and it will collapse the grids. Green energy is great but it is not a 24/7 reliable source of power and it also has environmental impact like turbines, land use and what do you do if there is no sun or wind? What do you do when there are peaks in demand?

I wish we did not need oil but for now it makes a lot more sense and is actually less harmful to the environment than electric vehicles.

Geo thermal energy and nuclear power is probably the best thing we have right now and fuel cells and hopefully one day fusion reactors. Most countries are decommissioning their nuclear power plants which seems rather foolish. There is no way to have the standard of living we enjoy and the power we enjoy without a cost to the environment.

We should try to use less energy and be more efficient. People in cities don’t need 300hp engines and luxury SUVs just to drive to work and back. We don’t need cities lit up like the day at night, etc. etc.
 
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It’s one thing to upgrade my phone and watch on an annual basis, but I won’t be able to do that with this Apple product.

Also, will it have a proprietary charging cable? A large MagSafe cable would look pretty cool. 😆
 
adamw said:
$100,000+ will put it out of reach for many people. Nice try Apple, but I believe this will be a miss! If Apple were in the $40,000 to $60,000 range they would likely sell a lot of these cars.
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See also:

"If Apple were in the $400 to $600 range they would likely sell a lot of these laptops"
"If Apple were in the $200 to $400 range they would likely sell a lot of these phones"
"If Apple were in the $100 to $200 range they would likely sell a lot of these watches"
"If Apple were in the $50 to $90 range they would likely sell a lot of these headphones"

I'm gonna trust that the leadership of a company that hit a $3 Trillion market cap this year knows more about pricing their products than I do.
 
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I'm sorry, but it's impossible to predict the price of something 4 years in advance, especially if Apple hasn't even finalized a design or settled on a partner they'll work with. Also, Apple has a lot of hurdles they need to overcome just to bring it to market. It wouldn't surprise me if we have to wait longer than 2026.
 
Spock said:
It's funny, I remember when people were saying the same thing when Apple started doing movies rentals in iTunes. They all thought having internet fast enough to do such a thing was for the elites. Now we are talking about an Apple Car, good times.
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What’s not so funny is that I remember when people said the same thing when Apple introduced the ludicrously expensive IIfx, and it wasn’t long after that Apple started its decline into irrelevance.

They had a short burst of success with the Mac classic and LC but with little innovation and inability to differentiate themselves from the onslaught of Windows machines, Apple found itself in dire straits before Steve came back to gut the company and rebuild it into what it was a few years ago.

Today, it resembles John Sculley’s Apple more than Steve’s, unfortunately, but that’s almost inevitable when you hand over the reins to an MBA.
 
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