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This is very true. We will see and are already starting to see a shift from car ownership to cars as a service. There are a lot of young people and teenagers that don’t have any interest in driving or getting a driver’s license. I remember sleepless nights waiting for my 16th birthday so I could then get my learner’s permit. But with services like Lyft and Uber and overly accommodating parents, there isn’t the need or desire to drive anymore. Heck, there are even those car share programs in a lot of cities now where you can just “borrow” a car for the day.

LOL, no...

Sorry, but no...
 
LOL, no...

Sorry, but no...

In contrast to Uber (which is non existent in Germany since our cabs are really good) we do have a huge car sharing market over here. My wife and me sold our car last year and use solely public transport. And when we do need a car we take one for a few hours since they are all over the city.

Cars used to show your status and wealth when I was young. I wanted a stylish Italian fast car back then. Nowadays the young people don't care about owning cars. Mobile phones are the new status symbols. Heck some even don't bother to have a driving license! And those that do lend cars instead of buying them. So Tesla has not that status that it may have over there in the US. Some people in this thread seem to take it personally when someone says something bad about Tesla! LOL. Whatever, Tesla won't be important in 10 years. :)
 
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I haven’t looked at a Tesla, I’m not sure that there is a dealer in my state. I can’t speak to the quality of Tesla models but I also haven’t heard or read about complaints about performance or unreliabilityfrom Model S or X owners and they’ve been out for a number of years now. I have read a few comments about the interior not being up to par with comparably priced cars but most owners seem to be happy.

Other than interstates and a few large towns you can’t depend on finding a compatible charger in Nebraska, so owning one as a principal or only vehicle is not practical. And I can’t afford something that expensive for just show.
 
The most important thing about this is apple should’ use the apple brand for the car, they should make a new brand just like toyota made lexus. Right now, apple logo on a car looks tacky, it looks weird.
 
"Don't worry everyone, he won't be bringing any Tesla secrets with him...like that engineer who left us for a competitor in China."
 
Apple will be sued for a trillion dollars when a stupid car like the Uber one that mowed over the woman walking her bike on an intersection hits a group of people. Stupid stupid project. Billions in liability to sell a low margin car. $ 10,000 corollas are the competition. No margin, high exposure. Not worth it. Let the pioneers make the mistakes over a few years.

Care to source this? I haven't heard this one before.
 
In contrast to Uber (which is non existent in Germany since our cabs are really good) we do have a huge car sharing market over here. My wife and me sold our car last year and use solely public transport. And when we do need a car we take one for a few hours since they are all over the city.

Cars used to show your status and wealth when I was young. I wanted a stylish Italian fast car back then. Nowadays the young people don't care about owning cars. Mobile phones are the new status symbols. Heck some even don't bother to have a driving license! And those that do lend cars instead of buying them. So Tesla has not that status that it may have over there in the US. Some people in this thread seem to take it personally when someone says something bad about Tesla! LOL. Whatever, Tesla won't be important in 10 years. :)

That is only momentary, because the economy doesn't give to spending money in things like cars.

Also, you must be below 30's, after a while, you'll see that mobiles phones won't do for status symbols.
 
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You think Doug Field made those decisions? Didn’t all of that exist before he came to Tesla? Perhaps he left because he didn’t agree with some of those decision?

The article states he oversaw the production, as in the boss, of the Model 3, for several years. He could have left at anytime if, as you have assumed in your opinion, he had a problem with the design of the car.
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I don't think so... SUVs and sedans are the same thing, do the same, cost the same, it's just a different body style.

They aren’t always the same actually, a sedan is a saloon four door family car and can have the performance of a Ferrari, an SUV can be a 4X4 off riding beast able to tackle the Amazon.
 
...
The Mac Pro, cough cough...

Indeed, it is interesting that the year he left was its last update (2013).

Of course, the cynical view to all of this is that if he was brought back to work on the Mac Pro, then since that infamous April 2017 meeting, its only took Apple a mere 15 months to find a project manager /S


-hh
 
Its funny how there is all this "apple would never buy..." talk. Bottom line is if they bought as ridiculous a product and brain trust as Beats anything is possible.
 
Whoever made that steering wheel graphic for the article really phoned it in. haha

There's one thing more than anything else that would keep me from buying a Tesla, ever. People assume that paying the higher costs for more capacity means you're getting more battery cells, but it's fully a software limitation. They stick the same physical capacity in each of the cars, but software limits the charging unless you paid more for the car.

That's a wildly weasily move, in my opinion.
 
I don't think I would buy an Apple car... Apple should continue to focus on doing few things and doing them well. Their core competencies are in perfecting computer technology. Likewise, car makers with decades of experience have a core competency in building safe, reliable cars.

Sure, the two areas can overlap and obviously do. But Apple -- a company that is unable or unwilling to update half their existing product line -- should not be branching out into a complete different product category. Seriously. Let's make sure crumbs don't disable a keyboard before we jump into self driving cars. That's just my opinion.
 
I haven’t looked at a Tesla, I’m not sure that there is a dealer in my state. I can’t speak to the quality of Tesla models but I also haven’t heard or read about complaints about performance or unreliabilityfrom Model S or X owners and they’ve been out for a number of years now. I have read a few comments about the interior not being up to par with comparably priced cars but most owners seem to be happy.

Other than interstates and a few large towns you can’t depend on finding a compatible charger in Nebraska, so owning one as a principal or only vehicle is not practical. And I can’t afford something that expensive for just show.

How many days a year do you drive more than 300 miles? Most people don’t drive nearly that many miles every day, so charging isn’t an issue. Come home, plug it in, and you’re charged up and ready to go the next morning. When people worry about charging and charging stations, they’re stuck in the gas station paradigm where you need to rely upon a third party for fuel. With an electric car, you “fill it up” every night yourself at home.
 
Apple will be sued for a trillion dollars when a stupid car like the Uber one that mowed over the woman walking her bike on an intersection hits a group of people. Stupid stupid project. Billions in liability to sell a low margin car. $ 10,000 corollas are the competition. No margin, high exposure. Not worth it. Let the pioneers make the mistakes over a few years.
Have you actually seen the footage and looking into it? It was a combination of few things but mainly a driver error as she was not paying attention.
 
Apple making software for a vehicle is hilarious given their track record. The last thing the world needs is anything put out by Tim Crook driving on the roads with innocent people. Maps, Siri, High Sierra, iTunes, on and on. White rings, butterfly keyboards, faulty graphic chips, dust behind monitors, overheating computers, faulty hinges on laptops, crackling speakers, bendable iPhones, problems with iPhone batteries... Give it a rest Cupertino. The world is good. We don't need anymore of your kind of "innovation"...
 
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The article states he oversaw the production, as in the boss, of the Model 3, for several years. He could have left at anytime if, as you have assumed in your opinion, he had a problem with the design of the car.
I don’t know if he did or not. I do know if someone besides Apple had hired him people here would be ragging on Tim Cook for not hiring him back.
 
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Well ... everyone's entitled to their opinions. But I'll say this. I traded off two nice vehicles in order to be able to afford to purchase a used Tesla S recently. And I have no regrets.

The people who keep complaining about the Tesla's "cheap interior" or build quality must be comparing it to some really high end luxury cars? Because I'd say this Model S has superior quality to cars I've owned previously like my 2016 Nissan 370Z NISMO edition, or my Jeep Wrangler Rubicon Unlimited. It's probably most comparable to the 2011 Cadillac CTS Coupe I owned, which I don't think is bad at all. (Of course, some of the Cadillac owners on the message forums complained that the CTS didn't have comfortable enough seats and so forth, too. So yeah, you can't please everyone.)

I'm not so much a fan of the new Model 3, with pretty much everything placed on the touchscreen (AND that screen looking like it was stuck there after the face, vs integrating it cleanly into the dash itself).

I'm definitely interested in what Apple brings to the table for the electric vehicle market, though. One of the glaring omissions with the Tesla is the lack of ability to really integrate with a smartphone. There's no "Apple CarPlay" or "Android Auto" type functionality at all. It's more of a proprietary selection of Tesla-designed apps, beyond your basic Bluetooth connectivity for hands-free calling and ability to play songs off the phone's own storage.

I have my doubts I'd care much for the styling of an "Apple car" if they really built such a thing. Their minimalist tendencies that work nicely on computers and portable electronics aren't necessarily what I prefer in a vehicle. But they're very good at user interface design and that's where they might really make a good contribution. Auto-makers are notoriously BAD at getting technology right in their vehicles. I just drove a new loaner Infinity QX60 SUV and the stereo sounded poor. The controls weren't user-friendly at all. And there were just odd decisions all over about how to best use the screen space available on the dash.

And even on the Tesla, the operating system and software seems less stable than it could be. It's a pretty common thing that Tesla owners tell you they have to do a system reboot by holding down both left and right buttons on the steering wheel, because things quit working right or responding on the dash.


If it’s anything like the Tesla cars it won’t be very good! I sat in one for the first time and I just thought cheap plastic everywhere, not very well made, and a ridiculous giant screen that’s not easy to use at all, not a patch on a phone, and it’s just a distraction as you have to use it for everything taking your eyes off the road. Overpriced dangerous rubbish I thought. It needs to drive itself just to you can adjust the aircon!

I hope he doesn’t do the same to this Apple project..
 
I never thought about having an Apple logo on a car until this steering wheel mock-up. I really hope that if they DO proceed with an actual car on the road, that they do something other than the standard Apple  logo, which just looks silly on the mock-up.

I know they have a lot invested in their brand and logo, but perhaps an Apple car shouldn’t be an ‘Apple’ car.
 
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