Elon Musk Says Apple's Electric Car Project is an 'Open Secret'

[StevieD100]

I'm leasing one (the Smart EV) and really like it. Its limited range (especially in winter) is the big drawback, along with the obviously long re-charge times. But it drives beautifully, has amazing acceleration and is really stable. Recharging the car hasn't impacted my electric bill very much. It's been a great economical vehicle for simply getting back and forth to work.

I've been driving a Plug-In Hybrid (Outlander PHEV) since August. I charge the car up with power mostly generated by the Solar Array I have on my roof. The economic impact is that I am getting less money back from the power company than before if I charge the car during the day.
If I'm doing short trips I hardly ever switch on the Petrol Engine.
The acceleraton with by default 4-wheel drive when running on battey is fantastic.

IMHO, at this point in time, all electric vehicles will have a limited appeal. Perfect for city driving. Problems with longer distances. Rapid charging does reduce the life of the battery. That means a Hybrid is probably the way to go for the next 5-10 years if you do longer distances where re-charging points are few and far between.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

If only Apple and Tesla worked on a car together...

That would be something great.

But Teslas are already great. Apple+Tesla would be horrible. Too many hyper-inflated egos involved.
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I'm sure they are great....but a lot of people after having one go right back to gas engines...

Yes. Electric is a novelty until they can figure out range and super fast charging. Until then they are only practical as errand runners.

 

[Arndroid]

Tesla's Gigafactory will be online in the foreseeable future. Once online, it will dramatically reduce the cost of battery production. Musk has been successful in everything that he has done.. He has not only been successful, but overwhelmingly so. This is a man who has created a private company that is building reusable rockets for our space program. He is in a different league than most.

Within 3-5 years, once electric vehicles drop down to under 35,000 dollars, who is going to buy a gasoline powered engine vehicle? Tesla is already at the forefront, and the market leader, of current electric vehicles on the road and seems to also be ahead of the curve when it comes to autonomous driving. Hard to believe that anyone still thinks Tesla is going to go belly up.. Their is too much infrastructure that has been developed, from the factories building the vehicles to the Gigafactory which has the potential to dramatically change the production of batteries worldwide.

They are the blackberry of electric cars. They have such a large lead nobody else will ever catch them.

 

[arggg14]

You guys are ridiculous lol. There will always be a better generation of every product on the market. That doesn't devalue what you already knew you were getting for your money.

The difference between Apple Product X Rev A and B is always more significant. Just wait until Apple Watch 2.

 

[winston1236]

If for some reason people started to run out and buy electric cars all of the sudden, the price of gas would fall even lower which would push people towards gas engines anyway.. Tesla can't even turn a profit with them.

But you're forgetting profits don't matter currently. Netflix, Spotify, Uber,

Looking forward to seeing this car, hopefully it will be "affordable" though even for the most die hard fans who can afford apple products, may never be able to afford this one.

If they want to make money they will price it to be affordable (in the U.S this means the price divided into affordable payments over 5-7 years). Otherwise they will operate at a loss like most premium auto companies are now owned by companies that sell high volume affordable autos.

 

[jmgregory1]

I have zero hopes (or desire) that Apple will create the kind of car I would be willing to drive. A big part of me thinks that Apple will focus on the tech first and battery range second, forgetting that cars, for lots of people, are emotional purchases.

Tesla's appeal to me because they figured out, for the most part, what no other auto manufacturer has been able to do and have gone beyond just the cars and at least started on the charging infrastructure, which is a huge concern for lots of people.

My worry is that the Apple car, if there is going to be one, will be some cutesy thing with wheels that is not the fastest, won't offer the most range, be the best designed, etc., but will simply appeal to the crowd of people who buy cars to get from point A to point B. I might be a bit jaded given what Google has been doing in the self driving space, or the purported discussions Apple have had with BMW around their i3, which I find to be one heinous commuter car that so effectively moves beyond BMW's "The Ultimate Driving Machine" slogan. Or maybe it's just that my 20+ years of knowing and using Apple computer products won't allow my mind to see them as a car manufacturer, which of course I know they have the money to do almost whatever they want.

 

[Leonard1818]

I think he'll be proven correct. Just as when Apple developed the iPhone, the general consensus was that smartphones were a niche market. Now they're ubiquitous. With so many accidents on the road, self-driving cars could provide a much greater margin of safety.

I always wonder about this too. I think autonomous vehicles are closer than people seem to think. I have this vision that one day my lowly Honda Civic will be a) a lot to insure because it's not as "safe" on the roads.... and b) be one of a dying number of, not only "drive it yourself" but also manual transmission vehicles.

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

Adapted from an old joke, but frighteningly possible:

Features of the Apple Car:
1. Every time they repaint the lines on the road, you have to buy a new Apple car.
2. Every year, you'll have to replace the Engine with a new version. This will be free, but the handling will become less responsive. The only way to fix this will be to buy a new car.
3. It will be the narrowest car ever made. There will only be room for a driver, but for some reason people will say this is better than the old clunky fat cars from over 100 years ago. Besides, everyone loves driving, why would you want a passenger?
4. Because it's so narrow, there won't be room for a steering wheel. But the car will come with an iTouch that links to the car via bluetooth to let you steer using touch screen controls.
5. There will only be one pedal. You press it with your right foot to accelerate and left foot to brake.
6. Headlights will not be user replaceable. When the headlights burn out, you have to buy a new car.
7. The oil, engine, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced with a single "General Car Fault" warning light.
8. People will get excited about the "new" features in the Apple Cars, forgetting completely that they have been available in other cars for many years.
9. The Apple car will only work with Apple fuel. It will be much more expensive, less efficient, and more polluting than gasoline, but Apple will tell us how great it is for the environment anyway.
10. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off and start a 60 second countdown.
11. They won't build their own engines, but buy them from their most hated competitors who they're constantly involved in court battles with.
12. The latest engine will have 32 cylinders, and multi-point fuel injectors. But the fuel pump will be so under-powered that the car stalls several times a day.
13. They will replace the liquid cooling system with an air cooling system. If you ever take the car up to highway speeds, you'll have to stop for 5 minutes every half hour, but the car sure will run quiet.
14. You will only be able to listen to music on Apple Music. Playing any other audio in the car will void the warranty.
15. All roads will have to become toll roads with 30% of the tolls going to Apple. If any states refuse to charge these tolls, your car won't drive on them.
16. If you don't upgrade to the latest version every year, people will make fun of you even though your car drives faster
17. The car will only be able to drive in the right lane. The ability to switch to other lanes will require an ICP (in car purchase) and you'll have to spend 5 TimGolds every time you change lanes.
18. Using the windshield wipers will be 10 TimGolds.
19. Instead of being made of steel, the car will be made out of paper thin aluminum. Crashes will not be survivable but every will applaud when Apple makes he car 3mm narrower.

A good joke, but "frighteningly possible"?? I'd ask you if you're on crack, but the mods would probably warn me about derogatory/insulting behavior.

However, that being said, I have to admit that #6 (headlights not user replaceable) is the one item that in my mind rings a little bit of truth. I'm not saying that headlights won't be user replaceable, however that's exactly the kind of thing that Apple would do and honestly one of the biggest examples of the vast differences in the mindset/priorities between a consumer electronics company and a car company

 

[Stella]

Shame Apple couldn't make

Self driving electric cars will revolutionize cities. What if the cars are shared? then you could call any available car to come and pick you up. Like Uber but with no driver. There would be no need for parking lots near shopping centers. The car could go off and park at some distant location or go and give some other person a ride while you shop.

And call it Car Sharing... or Public Transit... Make the vehicle longer and call it a driver-less bus! Car sharing is growing in popularity - i.e., Zip Car / Autoshare. A growing number of people who live in cities are beginning to realize it is cheaper to car share instead of owning a car.

Driverless cars will help with gridlock in our cities - certainly with stop / go traffic jams - traffic will still be slow but at a constant speed.

Ultimately, we need less cars on the road / more car sharing - so what you describe will certainly help. A lot of traffic is caused by single occupancy vehicles - which is inefficient for the size of the vehicle containing only a driver.


I'm sure people have seen this photo before - road space - cars vs public transit vs bikes.

 

[jmgregory1]

A good joke, but "frighteningly possible"?? I'd ask you if you're on crack, but the mods would probably warn me about derogatory/insulting behavior.

However, that being said, I have to admit that #6 (headlights not user replaceable) is the one item that in my mind rings a little bit of truth. I'm not saying that headlights won't be user replaceable, however that's exactly the kind of thing that Apple would do and honestly one of the biggest examples of the vast differences in the mindset/priorities between a consumer electronics company and a car company

The thing is, regarding headlights, many cars today are already challenged with simple bulb replacement, requiring removal of the entire front facia, and hence a visit to the dealership. We're not even at the point where HID bulbs have hit mainstream, even though they're already getting replaced with LED bulbs, which means that just in cost alone, replacing bulbs can be challenging for a broad population of people.

I hope that if Apple does get into the car business, that they maintain their aspirational nature, much like Tesla has done. The Apple Car does not need to be a $20k econobox - it would be a big turn-off to me if it were. Price it like other premium brands and simply compete head to head and the market will decide whether it was a good idea to create an Apple Car.

 

[forerunnerg34]

There was the watch and then Apple made a square black screen that they call Apple Watch. Now an Apple Car? I wonder what would be their market segment.

 

[igorsky]

I'm pretty sure Musk wants competition.
Tesla is going to be the premium electric car brand for the foreseeable future. If they get a lot of other companies releasing electric cars, that would increase the demand for charge stations and influence public perception that electric cars are practical.
Basically increasing the overall demand by a large amount, and lose sales to the new competitors by a small amount = net win.

Pretty sure Musk does not want competition. He maybe wants lower-priced electric cars to push the development of needed infrastructure (as you mentioned) that would benefit Tesla, but the last thing he wants is Apple competing directly with Tesla. Why would he? They will eventually eat his lunch.

Don't let the bravado fool you. He is increasingly sounding like the CEOs in Switzerland who were laughing off the Apple Watch.
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Apple has never just gone to Foxconn and told them to assemble anything, ever. They provided Foxconn with new equipment, facilities, fabrication methods, etc for virtually every new product.

Kind of crazy that you actually have to explain that the labor force assembling their devices are actually not the brains behind Apple.

 

[mono1980]

So in other words, don't buy first Gen Apple Car. For some reason I find this hilarious. I won't buy a first Gen Apple product ever again since I was burned on the iPad.

The original iPad was particularly bad. Only 256 MB of RAM? Seriously? Then the iPhone 4 came out and had 512 MB a couple of months later. Ouch.

 

[igorsky]

Driverless cars will help with gridlock in our cities - certainly with stop / go traffic jams - traffic will still be slow but at a constant speed.

I hope driver-less cars will be smarter than humans when it comes to blocking the box

 

[CmdrLaForge]

I am not happy about Apple building a car. Cars and computers, how does that match?

 

[blut haus]

If only Apple and Tesla worked on a car together...

That would be something great.

Tesla is known to work with other companies on vehicles. Toyota and Tesla had quite the relationship while I was there. We had a few of each model in storage for the engineers. Tesla licensed the vehicles for tech sharing.

 

[tbrinkma]

This is all great but one of the reasons I love driving is because manual transmissions are fun. These don't exist in electric cars obviously so I won't be buying an electric vehicle for some time

There's no reason why an electric car *can't* have a manual transmission. They won't have them by default, because they're less efficient, but once the market widens sufficiently, I suspect you'll start to see niche options like a manual transmission become available.
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Having a view screen is actually a cool idea, not just because of Star Trek but also if that feed could filter conditions like fog, sum glare, etc. I can't remember if it was Buick or Cadillac but a while back a car company offered a small HUD that offered night vision-esque view of the road.

Different viewing filters were also present in the retooled Knight Industries Two Thousand (in the TV movie)

I *think* it was Buick. It was a HUD combined an IR lamp/camera combination. I remember those commercials, where it showed the deer down the road, visible with the HUD, but not yet visible just by headlights. I've often wondered why that never hit mainstream.

I'd caution against going full 'viewscreen-only', though. Being able to see out of the car is important, and if there aren't windows, you can only see out when there is power and the camera(s) aren't obscured/broken.

 

[ChrisCW11]

If he doesn't feel threatened, stop commenting on it then.

The biggest source of Apple Car rumors is coming out of Musk's mouth. If he just shut up about it then nobody would even be aware Apple was doing any car research.
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There's no reason why an electric car *can't* have a manual transmission. They won't have them by default, because they're less efficient, but once the market widens sufficiently, I suspect you'll start to see niche options like a manual transmission become available.
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Well, EV manual transmission will be largely a superficial emulated feature as there is simply no "transmission" or gearing in an EV car. Part of the beauty of EV is getting rid of 500+ lbs of metal and gears so that people can assume they need to be involved in something as mundane as moving a stick.

 

[NickD73]

In 5 years when Apple is a stagnant stock like IBM or Microsoft, we'll all look back on these times and say to ourselves that we should have seen this coming when Apple tried to get into the car business. This company is without direction right now.

 

[igorsky]

In 5 years when Apple is a stagnant stock like IBM or Microsoft, we'll all look back on these times and say to ourselves that we should have seen this coming when Apple tried to get into the car business. This company is without direction right now.

Why did they get into the phone business? Why did they get into the tablet business? Why did they get into the music business? Why did they get into the smartwatch business? Why did they get into the tv business?

Thank goodness Apple is run by visionaries who are able to think outside the box.

 

[tbrinkma]

...
I'm sure people have seen this photo before - 50 cars vs 50 people vs 50 bikes

I'm pretty sure that's not 50 people in all three examples.
Count the cars. The rows are 4 wide, and at *least* 15 cars long before you hit the top of the picture. That's at *least* 60 cars, which *can't* currently be driven by 50 people.

 

[yaxomoxay]

Shame Apple couldn't make

Cute, but you forget another dimension other then space: Time.
With my car I can drive 60 miles, from my house, in an hour or less.
With a bus, it depends but certainly not faster than my car.
Bicycle... no comparison. And try to ride a bicycle in Texas during summer...

.

 

[whit2891]

In 5 years when Apple is a stagnant stock like IBM or Microsoft, we'll all look back on these times and say to ourselves that we should have seen this coming when Apple tried to get into the car business. This company is without direction right now.

Said everyone before the launch of the iPhone in 2007....If you think Apple is a one trick pony, you aren't the first. Many thought the iPod was it for Apple.

 

[just.in.time]

What happened? Did you miss your Windows Tablet PC?

They went cheap on the RAM, causing the 1st gen to be left behind at iOS 5. And not even left there in good shape. It was garbage with a ridiculous amount of crashes due to RAM shortages. This included Apple's own software, like Safari, crashing non stop. They really should have done a "trade in your old iPad and for an extra $100 you can upgrade to an equivalent storage model iPad 2 when it made it's debut" type of promotion.

 

[Dranix]

6 kWh of energy is enough to drive an electric car 20 miles, aka, as much as a gallon of gas.

What ****** car uses over 14 L/100km? Even my big SUV only takes 9.5 L... A nice Mazda 3 drives with 4.5-7 L.