Sketchy Report Says Apple Car is Years Ahead of Schedule, Will Debut Next Year

[DakotaGuy]

I own a twin turboed GT and plan to get a Model 3 or Y once the self driving monthly subscription pans out (No way im beta testing something for $10K) for my daily. I know a few people at cars and coffee and at the stripe who went with Tesla for their daily just to stick it to Ford. It was idiotic of their marketing team to trash an American Icon one of my friends even got arrested for sending a death threat to the CEO over it (Did it with his own email he isnt the brightest person).

If I had a friend that got arrested for sending death threats to a CEO over a car nameplate I'd find a new friend. They sound mentally unstable. With that said we will see how it goes. You think it'll be a total failure and I think it'll do just fine for Ford. We'll see how it's doing in a couple years.

 

[techwhiz]

BMW builds cars that have the long-term reliability of a Soviet Lada. I also highly doubt that a manufacturer in Taiwan, with their zero experience building vehicles would know anything about Apple's plans, if there even are any. GM also builds rubbish cars and has a knack of scrapping models, so you can rule them out.

What would be cool is if apple produced a Hydrogen car, which is where the future is realistically.

I disagree.
I have owned BMW's for 30 years and have never had an engine or transmission failure.
Six different cars with mileage above 200K on all. The highest mileage car approached 400K.
Have you ever owned a BMW or is something you have heard? The BMW straight six is still one of the best engines made and has been since the 1970's.
I've had water pumps fail but never anything catastrophic. I can't say anything like that about the Chrysler cars I've owned. One with a broken timing belt that grenades the motor. I'll never buy Chrysler.

GM? Depends on the car. I'm on my second Bolt and the first one was flawless. The only reason I don't still have it is because it was a lease. I now have a 2020 that I bought.
What manufacturer do you think is best?
Not Toyota with designing braking systems that won't stall the engine for several models.

I never mentioned any Taiwan manufacturer.
I mentioned a quality contract builder for cars; Magna-Steyr.

Apple, like Tesla is a technology company.
Tesla didn't actually build a whole car until the Model S.
The first Tesla was a rolling chases from Lotus that they retrofitted with electric motors and a battery.
The Models S was not designed in house.
The Model Y was an in house design, but based on the Models S.
Apple needs a rolling prototype now to see the light of day in the next three years.
They also need to set up manufacturing. You can't hide a car plant going up, you just can't.
They need supply chain agreements for things they have no idea on how to build.
There are safety concerns that need to be addressed.
Apple is not in a position to build a car. Not even close.
The same way they weren't in a position to build a modem until they hired ex Qualcomm execs and bought the Intel modem team. Even now they are 2-3 years from a 5G cellular modem.

 

[D.T.]

Dont forget recalls those can pop up decades later you cant really consider a car obsolete like an older mac and stop all support.

Yep, that's a great additional point that just emphasises the difference in supporting a $1500 laptop and a $50,000 vehicle. BTW, I have a '19 GT convertible (Perk Pack/A10/etc.), and I'm also considering a '21 Model 3 Perf next year

 

[MRrainer]

BMWs have apparently come down a bit in quality. I doubt a recent one will run for 400k km TBH.

There's just too much stuff that can and will go wrong.

 

[2010mini]

No. The Roadster is almost entirely its own vehicle; it just uses the Elise chassis.

my point was Tesla didn’t start out manufacturing their own chassis as other auto manufacturers have done.

 

[chucker23n1]

my point was Tesla didn’t start out manufacturing their own chassis as other auto manufacturers have done.

You were responding to someone saying "Perhaps they're just going to rebadge a car from another automaker" with "Tesla did before it developed its own chassis". That's true for the chassis, but that wasn't what the original person was saying.

 

[2010mini]

You were responding to someone saying "Perhaps they're just going to rebadge a car from another automaker" with "Tesla did before it developed its own chassis". That's true for the chassis, but that wasn't what the original person was saying.

In Tesla’s case they used the chassis and everything above it.

 

[MRrainer]

Apple, like Tesla is a technology company.
Tesla didn't actually build a whole car until the Model S.
The first Tesla was a rolling chases from Lotus that they retrofitted with electric motors and a battery.
The Models S was not designed in house.
The Model Y was an in house design, but based on the Models S.
Apple needs a rolling prototype now to see the light of day in the next three years.
They also need to set up manufacturing. You can't hide a car plant going up, you just can't.
They need supply chain agreements for things they have no idea on how to build.
There are safety concerns that need to be addressed.
Apple is not in a position to build a car. Not even close.
The same way they weren't in a position to build a modem until they hired ex Qualcomm execs and bought the Intel modem team. Even now they are 2-3 years from a 5G cellular modem.

As Tesla has shown, you can build a factory in a year, if you really want (and know what you're doing).

You can build prototypes without a factory. Just need a shop.

But as Elon has said: "Prototypes are easy, production is hard." - and Elon has over the years acquired some good companies that know how to build factories and equipment - as the German competitors have found out.

 

[Engineria]

form over function

I bet they would reduce the design complexity or dumb it down for consumers, maybe there would be only one foot pedal analogous to the early Apple mouse.

 

[Spock1234]

An unrepairable car that will be outdated or undrivable in 3-5yrs, because of software obsolescence.

Yes, because my iPhone 12 is still running iOS 4, and software updates are not a thing! 🤷‍♂️

 

[Spock1234]

The Chevy Bolt is a much better car overall than a Model 3. It just doesn't have technology quite as advanced.

My horse 'n' buggy is much better than any car overall. Its technology is just not as advanced.

But, the buggy never runs out of gas. If anything, I'd say it has an excess of gas!

 

[dontwalkhand]

Considering that BMW is now charging an annual fee for CarPlay, which is something that must make Apple unhappy, I doubt it.

They have removed the annual fee requirement.

 

[dontwalkhand]

Has nobody considered that, just possibly, Apple will release a car that does not feature autonomous driving?

After all, that’s how Tesla started out.

Based on patents and rumors, Apple has lots of ideas for ways to improve cars that have nothing to do with autonomous driving.

Releasing any type of car at all will make some sort of DMV involvement, and definitely FHWA, self driving or not, unless of course, they are releasing a car that is partnered with an existing manufacturer, such as BMW.

 

[Scottgfx]

I will be surprised if Apple ever starts building cars.

We were surprised when Apple opened retail stores. Again when they introduced the iPod and later the iPhone. Then we forget what it was like before all of those things. Car manufacturing began with people tinkering in their garages, as did Apple with computers. The former was over 100 years ago, the later, just over 40.

 

[Tulani]

 

[Scottgfx]

Why would Apple start competing in the highly competitive market of cars with low margins? It is one thing to make 'phones'. Another thing with cars. There must be a lot of other verticals that can benefit from Apples innovation and disruptive touch - no?

They said the same thing when Apple started an on-line ordering configurator fo building a Mac. Michael Dell had already done that. How can Apple compete with low-margin PCs? The Japanese by the 1980s had overcome some of the hurdles of the American car system. American cars had almost limitless options and customizations. The Japanese kept the ordering simple. On average, the cars cost more, but the styles, trim and options were kept to three option levels. Kind of like Good, Better and Best. Perhaps not a complete answer, but there is a parable in there, somewhere.

 

[truthertech]

I wasn't addressing the intrinsic complexity , but the distribution, storage, shipping, and the required infrastructure for a support network. Your iPad stops working, you can ship it, or drive it to an Apple store, your __car__ fails, you've lost your ability to go from A_to_B, and you certainly can't ship it.

I show up at the Apple store with a fried iPhone, they might just walk in back, grab a new one, swap the sim, I'm good to go. My car fails, they don't swap it out, it goes into a maintenance/repair process, now I need a loaner (and if Apple supplied those, where are they stored/maintained), it has to get from the failure location to some kind of Apple authorized repair location (and even if they could just "swap it out", you realize that would require an update of registration, tag, insurance, as those are associated with your VIN).

There are absolutely all sorts of logistic issues present in producing, selling and supporting a vehicle that aren't present in a small, portal electronic device.

Sure they are different, but not more complex. Apple's expertise is logistics and contracted assembly. Indeed, all the car manufacturers have worked them out, and they are simple to duplicate, e.g., you mention there needs to be a way to get your car from the "failure location to an authorized repair place;" that is done probably hundreds of thousands of times a day throughout the country and world as people have their cars towed, including Tesla's, to a repair place (though with an electric car there are very few systems to have problems compare with an ICE) Apple's current line of complex technology products is infinitely more complex than it would be to produce an Apple branded car.

Again, for a car, the true complexity is in the specialized software and economics. Most of the hardware components are able to be purchased off the shelf. They could contract the production of a car, and the service, very easily; however, they have no interest in just putting another car out there. They want to produce something unique of high quality.

Apple's incredible chip designers, sound engineers, product design, etc., are where they can distinguish themselves.

 

[freddiecable]

They said the same thing when Apple started an on-line ordering configurator fo building a Mac. Michael Dell had already done that. How can Apple compete with low-margin PCs? The Japanese by the 1980s had overcome some of the hurdles of the American car system. American cars had almost limitless options and customizations. The Japanese kept the ordering simple. On average, the cars cost more, but the styles, trim and options were kept to three option levels. Kind of like Good, Better and Best. Perhaps not a complete answer, but there is a parable in there, somewhere.

True that. And Apple would never embark on such a venture without solid consequence analysis etc. Will be interesting to see what they come up with. Apple doing their 'own silicone' was a surprise for me and looking at the result it looks very promising. I think - that IF Apple will make an electric car there WILL be something disruptive with it. Be it battery technology combined with their classical reimagining of 'what a car can be'.