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German Report Says 'Apple Car' Could Arrive in Form of Electric Van

Nanotyrns said:
I don't get this idea that they want to make a car. Their products tend to be very personal - an music player, a desktop/laptop that you become very attached to, a smart phone that keeps you in touch. They also tend to create products only when they believe they can do it better than anyone else and the electric self-driving car market has hardly begun let alone gelled into something they can disrupt.

I love my car but if I wasn't driving for ride-share right now to make ends meet it would sit the two days I'm off every week. I just don't have the same relationship with it that I do my Apple products.
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The car Apple wants to make is what is going to be your demise as a ride share driver on the weekends. The delivery space is also a huge one for groceries etc. Amazon just made. a huge investment in Rivian. The electric car and machine learning businesses along with semiconductor firms are likely to have the largest areas of growth in the next decade.

Amazon is aiming to cut it's carbon footprint in half by the year 2030 using such electric vehicles. You of all people being in the ride sharing game should know this. Have you not got the message that Uber's ultimate goal is to not need your services ASAP?
 
Me like electric car. Me like electric car with house-on-a-roof-rack. Me like car I don’t have to drive. Me bought self driving motorbike too. Me extremely gullible and naive and think self driving vehicles aren’t doomed from the start and are the future of transportation. Me now off to buy a self driving bicycle for short journeys. Me believe everything I read.
 
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BuddyTronic said:
Why would you bet against a van?

Think about the design challenges:

Battery weight.
Safety. Range. Cargo. Autonomous.

One great solution could be a van. Oh ok, you maybe don’t like the word van. How about “SUV”. Lol. Same thing. These days instead of the Chrysler magic wagon people are driving an Audi G7 and pretending it’s not a magic wagon

Someday you might hop in the back of the van and laydown for a sleep on the couch bed and tell it to take you to Las Vegas Bellagio.
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How about delivery pod? These things won't need windows. For carrying people sure but I see these becoming common as delivery capsules that don't need to move very fast and can be safe. There will also be taxis. These things are going to be fleets they won't replace the cars people like to drive they aren't designed to.

iDeliver
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RogerWilco said:
Would you say the same if Ford Motor Co. announced that it was opening a new division with the goal of making tablets or cell phones? After all, they have over a century of experience with mass production and supply chain management.
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No but if Ford announced it was going to use Apple's vast software expertise to be the brain of their autonomous car fleet that makes sense. GM was just in talks with Amazon about partnering with Rivian.
 
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why not? german post has an e-van for their stuff which is pretty successful.

btw., once german car makers get it going, they will surpass tesla easily.
 
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Romeo_Nightfall said:
Go wireless, dude amazon offers some cheap stuff You can even talk too
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Thanks dude for the heads-up, but:
  1. Amazon::= The ungodly source of cheap Chinese-crap electronics and tools.
  2. Will blow my old-school fuse.
  3. Will look incongruous as there is nothing digital to this car.
  4. And, even if 1-3 hold untrue, the BT electronics would probably die an early death.
[Also note the original roof antenna on the frontal picture I posted. I would never change it -- just trying to keep modern but by respecting the original.]
 
coolfactor said:
You make a good point, but cars? There's only so much hardware and software engineering that goes into designing and building a car, I can't see Apple bringing much value, let alone adhering to the consumer expectation of new models each year. They can't even manage that with their current product lines (although I peg that on the construction and transition to their new campus).

You may be right. In some reality, Apple could transform the car industry. But then I ask you... why isn't Tesla already doing that? Or have they? Has their push for electric cars forced other car companies to do the same? I think so.

Vehicle construction just doesn't feel right for Apple to me. They need to focus on their core products. There's aspects of macOS that have been neglected for YEARS!
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Yeah, not saying it will happen, but it's very possible. I know some higher ups at Apple are car guys.

Tesla is a whole different story. They have good designers but they need to get their production lines under control better. They've been improving, but this is an area that Apple typically excels at. Furthermore, Tesla is more beholden to investors and numbers than Apple is. Why? Because this is all Tesla does.

For Apple investors, this is a new category. There is less risk, and Apple has a cash hoard in the hundreds of billions that they can use to flush out everything exactly how they want it. But for now they are going slow, just like they did with the original iPhone, which was worked on as an iPad for many years before it came to market. Along the way they bought companies such as Fingerworks in 2005 that helped them nail down problems like capacitive touch gestures which was key to the iPhone's success. I expect similar things to happen for Apple. It makes sense to start with a platform geared towards ride sharing services, possibly even families, and build from there.

The Tesla Roadster was a flashy start to grab attention. Apple doesn't need that attention because anything they do in this space will be broadcast far and wide. The van also gives them a platform that has plenty of room for sensors (that they can miniaturize over time), it gives them a bigger frame for things like batteries, as well as a larger, safer vehicle for inhabitants should something fail with the self-driving components (though this is of little solace to pedestrians and other drivers). It also gives them a place in the middle where they can move up market (SUVs, trucks, sports cars) and down market (sedans, compacts). But I tend to think that Apple is going to go a lot slower with this than anything else they've ever done. If in the end they decide it's too much hassle or can't bring anything to the table they won't do it. But creating a fleet of self driving vans would be a huge boon to their ever-growing services unit. A few years ago they invested $1 billion in Chinese ride service Didi Chuxing, so this is clearly an area they are interested in. It could be a situation where early vans are third party running their hardware so they can build up their services revenue. Then over time, much like they have on iOS, they begin designing the components themselves. This is just a bit more extreme.
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AppleScruff1 said:
The car market is even more mature.
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Which is why they're taking their time even more.
 
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I wonder if an OTA update for CarOS will slow it down. Or brick it.
But not to worry, just trade it in every two years for the new model.
's business model since forever has been planned obsolescence. No reason an minivan would be any different.
 
mozumder said:
I like the idea of a utilitarian electric mini-van - none of the current mini-vans have electric models - but self-driving cars will NEVER happen without modifying the actual infrastructure.

Right now self-driving electric cars from Tesla have a higher death rate than motorcycles.

Meanwhile, there are some vehicles that have NEVER had a driver fatality for some model years, like the Kia Sorrento and the Honda Odyssey.
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I am going to call ******** on both these claims ,and demand that you provide sources to back these up.
 
Baymowe335 said:
Yeah, Tesla is just killing it from a profitability and sales perspective...

Tesla is entirely potential. The amount of cars they sell is incredible small and they have lost money almost every quarter. Subsidies for electric cars are expiring and competition is going to be intense.

Electric vehicles are not a concept Honda, BMW, Mercedes, Toyota, GM, and Ford don't understand.

I'm not saying Tesla is a dead company. I'm saying they aren't dominating anything at the moment and there are other FAR more competent car companies.

Tesla's factory is an outdated rig Toyota didn't want anymore. You think Tesla is advanced in manufacturing? Go watch a BMW being produced.
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I take it you're new to the Tesla bashing thing. These arguments have been echoed for over a decade now - they're quite stale.

The Truth About Cars ran a series called "Tesla Death Watch" back in 2008, because, supposedly, Tesla was going to implode any moment. Here's their first post:

https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2...dont-plan-to-build-any-cars-for-another-year/

Tesla isn't some small player anymore. They're the 13th most common brand in the US, with 2% of the market and growing rapidly. The players at the top shift back and forth between 6% and 12%, so Tesla is certainly on the brink of their league if not already in it.

If all those other companies "understand" electric vehicles, why aren't they building them in any significant quantities?

It's simple - it's an extremely similar reason to why the iPod never faced any significant challenge during its entire life. The iPod locked up the entire supply chain for small hard-drives - it took ~5 years for supplies to reach the point that competitors could get their hands on volumes anything like what Apple was using for the iPod. By that point, Apple had pivoted into the iPhone already. Similarly, Tesla has a massive lead on battery supply chains.

That's just one reason Tesla crushes the competition. There's at least a dozen others.
 
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This is still very early on and almost no point in discussing it. The project may never see the light of day.
 
ArtOfWarfare said:
I take it you're new to the Tesla bashing thing. These arguments have been echoed for over a decade now - they're quite stale.

The Truth About Cars ran a series called "Tesla Death Watch" back in 2008, because, supposedly, Tesla was going to implode any moment. Here's their first post:

https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2...dont-plan-to-build-any-cars-for-another-year/

Tesla isn't some small player anymore. They're the 13th most common brand in the US, with 2% of the market and growing rapidly. The players at the top shift back and forth between 6% and 12%, so Tesla is certainly on the brink of their league if not already in it.

If all those other companies "understand" electric vehicles, why aren't they building them in any significant quantities?

It's simple - it's an extremely similar reason to why the iPod never faced any significant challenge during its entire life. The iPod locked up the entire supply chain for small hard-drives - it took ~5 years for supplies to reach the point that competitors could get their hands on volumes anything like what Apple was using for the iPod. By that point, Apple had pivoted into the iPhone already. Similarly, Tesla has a massive lead on battery supply chains.

That's just one reason Tesla crushes the competition. There's at least a dozen others.
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Well let's see if they can get their share price up to $360 to avoid that $900 payment due if they don't. Tesla is a different beast because Musk isn't in it for the money. I sold my shares when I realized this. I did this simply because I am not rich and actually need to make money. So far it is working, if I save for another 6 months and the market does well I can purchase a shiny new (not a X Max just an XR 64gb) iPhone. :)

It is a story line company and there is nothing wrong with that. However Musk isn't out to take over the world. He would prefer the world to win and the entire industry to be successful. He isn't out to become the largest or best or a monopoly. Otherwise he wouldn't have given away all of his patents. He is trying to do the opposite of a company that has pricing power to move the prices up. In space and with cars he is trying to make it affordable. If he does he may become the richest man in the world with the largest company. However that isn't his goal.
 
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