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Report: Apple Developing Apple Car Autopilot Function With South Korean Partner

neilw said:
Electric cars do quite well sitting in traffic, air conditioning or not. Driving at speed consumes *far* more energy.
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Just to let you know I’m not against electric car but they are good for environmental, however some electric car you need to compromise for the energy either speed or air conditions as you can’t have both way in order to get more mileages.

Weather is also another problems for the battery as well.
 
MacWorld78 said:
I would buy a electric car as long it can do this concept.

Removable battery pack - go to Station (like petrol station) remove the battery from the car like a long cubic shape and put them into the charging dock, pay for the fresh battery and install back to the car and drive off (all done in between 2-5 mins).

Just pay for the battery performance as low/medium/long mileages - that figure should include AC heater/cooling.
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Battery swapping would only become a thing if people are willing to lease the battery pack. Otherwise you shouldn't be willing to take a pack that could have been abused by the previous user.
MacWorld78 said:
Just to let you know I’m not against electric car but they are good for environmental, however some electric car you need to compromise for the energy either speed or air conditions as you can’t have both way in order to get more mileages.

Weather is also another problems for the battery as well.
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Cooling requires very little energy compared to heating (for the cabin). Neither of those things compare to how much energy is required to move a vehicle through the air at high speeds.
 
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I used to be really excited for innovations like this but given how poor the “top” companies have been at putting out solid, reliable software over the past 5 or so years, I’m “steering” clear of all this type of stuff. I simply don’t trust their competency in software development anymore.

Luckily our roads are so poorly designed in the UK that full self driving will pretty much never arrive here. Combine incorrect data from councils about roads with overcomplicated junctions that humans can’t navigate and you’ve got endless edge cases that cars will not be able to navigate. I feel a complete redesign and simplification of our entire road system is needed before you’ll be able to go from A to B without any driver intervention.
 
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Karma*Police said:
Regulations will stifle innovation, increase the cost of doing business, and increase cost for consumers in the form of higher taxes and cost of vehicles. The gov’t should do the bare minimum to ensure public safety but otherwise stay out of the way.

Let the car companies compete and produce better cars. If standards are warranted, companies generally get together to create them without gov’t intervention. Look at USB-C, for example.
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Yes I agreed that regulation can stifle innovation however it is very important to have regulation rules for the public, driver and road safely.

The company will find the ways to increase the profit for the supply and demand.
 
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MacWorld78 said:
I would buy a electric car as long it can do this concept.

Removable battery pack - go to Station (like petrol station) remove the battery from the car like a long cubic shape and put them into the charging dock, pay for the fresh battery and install back to the car and drive off (all done in between 2-5 mins).

Just pay for the battery performance as low/medium/long mileages - that figure should include AC heater/cooling.
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Apple and removable battery? 🤣
They will probably offer a iCarCare for $20k or monthly $500, and that’s it.
 
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MacWorld78 said:
Just to let you know I’m not against electric car but they are good for environmental, however some electric car you need to compromise for the energy either speed or air conditions as you can’t have both way in order to get more mileages.

Weather is also another problems for the battery as well.
Click to expand...

True. The Prowler and Viper reportedly didn't have air conditioning because having it 'robbed' power from the engine. I was amazed, when I bought my first car, that turning on the AC caused a noticeable change in idle. Ironic that as 'climate change' causes more heating in the environment, more people will be driving with their AC on, increasing pollution out the tailpipe.

The second car I owned had a 96 horsepower motor. I used to joke that the only way I could pass people on the highway was with a tailwind and going down hill. The air conditioner was a joke, and I rarely used it. It seemed cruel to even have it installed, as using it was like adding a couple hundred pounds of weight for it to haul around. Most owners actually disconnected it, and used a shorter fan belt to totally bypass the compressor, and got a spike in MPG.

To leverage the electric car, get the most from it, people should expect to have to make some compromises. The US automakers watered down electric, and 'hybrid' cars adherence to 'old car habits' makes them kind of a joke. An electric car doesn't need electric seat warmers, AC, etc. An electric car needs performance, and efficiency. Anything that robs from that is counter productive. Adding such fluff and performance stealing extras should make the average car shopper wonder what they are getting. (A hubbled throwback with 'all show and no go', or a serious attempt to make a serviceable car that provides more than lip service to people concerned about our future) *shrug* But if it doesn't have AC, etc, would it sell. Maybe not, but then, compared to the state of the environment, the electric car market is pissing into the wind. The forces of global climate change are roaring forward like a freight train, and this electric car market is kinda like waving your hands to stop it. We need meaningful change. Like I think asphalt is heavily contributing to warming, and no one is addressing it. People aren't even saying it doesn't, which makes me think that it's a 'protected industry', unironically linked to fossil extraction conglomerates.

I DO hope that Apple releases an electric car. I think it really could be a game changer. I think that it will end up being elegant, from a technological sense, and meaningful from addressing appeal for electric cars. I hope it's not full of meaningless drivel like 'self-driving' and other 'too soon' sparkles. I mean, some might be nice, but like in the flying industry, people have been telling pilots not to rely on their automation as much for years. Adaptive cruise control is frightening. All of that 'tech' is frightening in the short amount of time that a driver has to react when it doesn't work as designed.

Go Apple!!! I will have an open mind on whatever they come up with. Competition in that market is going to be fantastic. The industry can't be controlled by one erratic voice. There was an article I came across that mentioned how many times the Tesla has been recalled. Yikes... Talk about 'public beta testing'?
 
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IIGS User said:
One of the biggest issues people cite for not switching to electric cars is "range anxiety", which I think is more than reasonable. Having some way to swap out battery packs on a long trip, or when you can't get to a charger would go a long way towards that.

Two instances where an electric car wouldn't have worked for me and mine recently would have been a driving trip to Indiana from Philadelphia for a wedding during the pandemic. Even if we were interested in getting on a plane, we really couldn't afford it so driving was the only way for us to go. And yes, my wife drove it straight through refusing my offer to take a shift. There was really no way to accomplish this trip with an EV. We took a similar trip in January of last year to visit a sick family member in Ohio. There was no way we would have made this trip in an EV without stopping, which all we stopped for was gas and drive through.

Someone mentioned the supercharger route. I believe they are proprietary to Tesla only, so unless you have the coin for a Tesla, you're SOL. My wife has a Chevy Malibu, which is the best she could afford.

I'm a car & tech guy, and the EV's offered now look like they are a hoot to drive everything else aside. I'm sure I will own one someday. But not right now.

There's a lot of North America where 300 miles is a round trip to Wal Mart, broadband internet is non existent, and electric cars and pickups are simply not practical forms of transportation in their current form. This will change as the technology and charging infrastructure matures, but it's going to take longer than people think, IMHO.
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As someone that owns an EV, range anxiety is more intimidating prior to actually owning the car. Waking up with a "full tank" every day quickly makes that anxiety fade away. In the case of Tesla, their supercharging network is really great and spaced out pretty well across the entire country.
 
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Wildkraut said:
Apple and removable battery? 🤣
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Good point... I remember back when the 787 was having thermal overruns with their battery packs, someone suggested an ejection system for them so that, in-flight, the packs could be jettisoned and the plane could then land and just get another one.

Ahh, but those 'packs' supposedly weigh around 500 to 1,000 pounds (in one article I read). Imagine a flaming pack of batteries weighing that much plummeting into your house, or car on the highway. Even f it 'only' happens a few times a year, that's a heck of a lot of potential damage.

And, for the car battery, you are still looking at something that would weigh several hundred pounds. The car would have to have a system of rollers on a track to allow for easy replacement as you suggest. Just designing a battery system that could be 'easily' replaced at those weights could take years (and dealing with stuck ones). It's not like the power pack for the ship on Fifth Element. There needs to be better battery technology: lighter, or a better way to shrink the packs down: lighter/smaller.

Love that movie...

It's a... It's a... It's a... It's a...
 
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PinkyMacGodess said:
Go Apple!!! I will have an open mind on whatever they come up with. Competition in that market is going to be fantastic. The industry can't be controlled by one erratic voice. There was an article I came across that mentioned how many times the Tesla has been recalled. Yikes... Talk about 'public beta testing'?
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To be fair, most of the recalls are software related, for things they added without asking permission (like Boombox while moving or rolling stops for Beta FSD).
 
mattopotamus said:
As someone that owns an EV, range anxiety is more intimidating prior to actually owning the car. Waking up with a "full tank" every day quickly makes that anxiety fade away. In the case of Tesla, their supercharging network is really great and spaced out pretty well across the entire country.
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There isn't one within 100 miles of my house. Someone looked into charging stations around here. They found the one local station. It had a sign announcing its availability, over stubbed out conduit sticking out of the concrete. They are all over the place in California, and many at Whole Foods stores down state, but for someone buying a Tesla around here, they are 'chained' to their house.
 
based on the mal performance of every newly launched version of iOS for the last 14 years which clearly has shown over and over and over again that the are INCAPABLE of releasing reliable software, (bugorama) who in their right mind would trust this new car to run on autopilot?
Madness
 
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macguru212 said:
I wager the charging port is on the under carriage, requiring the car to be flipped over for access and charging.
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THAT makes me wonder how many have attempted to drive off with the cord still stuck in their car. Ouch...

EDIT: Don't laugh. Enough people do it, there is a breakaway coupler in all fuel pump hoses. My mom did it once. It was past midnight and had been a long day, but it happens...
 
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PinkyMacGodess said:
There isn't one within 100 miles of my house. Someone looked into charging stations around here. They found the one local station. It had a sign announcing its availability, over stubbed out conduit sticking out of the concrete. They are all over the place in California, and many at Whole Foods stores down state, but for someone buying a Tesla around here, they are 'chained' to their house.
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What state do you live it? I'm in the southeast and could travel the entire country using the network.
 
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diamond.g said:
To be fair, most of the recalls are software related, for things they added without asking permission (like Boombox while moving or rolling stops for Beta FSD).
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Yeah, the term "recall" seems outdated. All of the ones I have experienced with Tesla were OTA software updates.
 
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MacWorld78 said:
I would buy a electric car as long it can do this concept.

Removable battery pack - go to Station (like petrol station) remove the battery from the car like a long cubic shape and put them into the charging dock, pay for the fresh battery and install back to the car and drive off (all done in between 2-5 mins).

Just pay for the battery performance as low/medium/long mileages - that figure should include AC heater/cooling.
Click to expand...

I would not buy one for that reason, if it existed. The simple fact is not many people take much care of their belongings. I’d rather sit for the 30 minutes than pull a battery pack that looks suspect at best, and potentially harmful for the long term viability of the vehicle at worst.
 
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diamond.g said:
Battery swapping would only become a thing if people are willing to lease the battery pack. Otherwise you shouldn't be willing to take a pack that could have been abused by the previous user.

Cooling requires very little energy compared to heating (for the cabin). Neither of those things compare to how much energy is required to move a vehicle through the air at high speeds.
Click to expand...

Hopefully the charging dock will inform you if the battery have been abused it will basically refused to accept it - check the counter 😂

Cooling or heating will eat up battery obviously you can't get away with current system. Somebody need go back drawing board and re-design for the air con (extremely low power & friendly air output).
 
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