It think it's more likely that Apple would invest in Tesla. It would be a good investment in the long run, and in the short term it would give huge boost to EVs in general. Car makers would stop hoping that Tesla stumbles and start seriously working on their own EVs. Right now, even the Bolt is still just a compliance car - they're building fewer Bolts than Corvettes!
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Tim Cook Confirms Apple's Focus on Autonomous Driving Systems
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Sounds like you will do an awful lot of staying at home in the future then.
I feel I'm pretty safe going forward as the market for apple based car products is not a given.
I don't see manufactures giving up their tech or future development for CarPlay (thankfully).
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Me too, they are well ahead of anyone else and with moves by cities around the world to ban diesel power cars for electric power they will only go from strength to strength.
Generally speaking, I find boastfulness coupled with a negative comparative assessment of most everyone else to likely be indicative of a dubious level of self confidence. That's neither here nor there, I suppose. Can't say I've ever heard the Stig brag about his driving skills, though.
In any case, whatever one's vast diving experience may be, Apple, Google, Tesla and others have systems on the road, and each will quickly dwarf the hours, miles and circumstances of experience that any one human can accumulate in a lifetime. Comparing oneself to "the current state of the tech" is so pointless as to be silly. That tech will be "learning" and improving over the next year or five years or ten at a rate that you can't match.
Besides, if you're such a spectacularly skilled driver and if "most people aren't especially bright," wouldn't it be to your benefit to get all those dimwits into AI-driven cars that will be better drivers than they are, even if your own prowess can never be matched?
And with time, those teenagers will be forced to use their parent's autonomous car more and more due to insurance costs, that there will be a feedback loop where driving skills become less and less developed in society.
And I can see major metropolitans (NYC, San Francisco, London, Singapore, for example) taking the lead in adding to the expense of driving into the city.
What cities are banning diesel? Certainly not seeing that in the US.
What I love about Tesla is they understand people don't want to compromise with an electric vehicle. Teslas are faster than most cars on the road and still have good range.
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I would have agreed with you a year ago, but after looking into Tesla more, I think they are actually more innovative than Apple currently. Letting Apple get in the way of Tesla would be a bad thing for Tesla at this point. They are the biggest car maker in America by market capitalization now.
BTW, I think you mean Volt!
I don't either. I think when they started they didn't think Tesla would be as far along as they are now. They may have bought into the industry's propaganda and thought that Tesla was going to fail and they could be the outsider/disrupter.
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No, the Volt is just a hybrid. The Bolt is pure electric and even has good range (EPA: 238 miles per charge), but they're building @275/week. That's around ⅓ as many Corvettes they make in a week, so they could build more and sell them nationwide, but they're limiting sales because they're only making it as a compliance car.
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You won't see it in the US, but India for example is planning on zero ICE by 2030.
In Germany: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-autos-diesel-idUSKBN16028H
Paris, Madrid, Mexico City, and Athens:
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-cities-to-ban-diesel-cars-from-their-centres
It's funny how this particular story is being misreported and shaped to get views (on other websites) saying Apple is building a car. There are more than a few "internet journalists" that need to be axed, but hey clickbait is all they can do these days.
Yes they are — unless Apple has something well hidden that takes us all by surprise!
I'm not sure Apple would need or want to take them over. If they bought a sizable chunk of the company they could gain a new market for their products while putting more cash into Tesla, making it almost impossible for them to fail.
Market cap is nice, but at this point Tesla needs to add more manufacturing capacity rapidly, and that's all a matter of funding. It would need to be unlike most of their buys, but it could work out well for Apple, Tesla, and EV buyers. It probably (ok, almost certainly) won't happen, and if it doesn't happen soon it won't matter, but if it did happen this year it could be a good thing.
I am not sure I understand why it could be a good thing except: cash. Tesla is doing very well designing new models, building Gigafactories, etc. Elon is the visionary, not Tim.
Cash is a big thing!
Tesla buyers are a good market for Apple products and working together would help both companies while forcing other auto makers to get into EV production (not just compliance cars) now, not five years from now because the extra cash would remove the idea that Tesla might falter.
Tesla buyers are a good market for Apple products and working together would help both companies while forcing other auto makers to get into EV production (not just compliance cars) now, not five years from now because the extra cash would remove the idea that Tesla might falter.
I'll be very happy to have a self driving car when it's better than me. Right now it's not. It's 10x worse than me. I should not be forced into it before it's better than me. Doing that is the same as threatening my life. My worry is that some do goody politician is going to take my steering wheel away "for everyone's good" when it will actually make me less safe.
What's going to force you into using it will be cost. Insurance companies will make business decisions about your rates based on human accidents and autonomous accidents. So your wish will come true! You'll only have to use it when it is safer than you, and it will be much safer than you, and in just a few years.
I've visited the Tesla factory in Fremont and it huge with vast areas of the plant unused/available for additional lines.
Capacity is not a problem.
Pretty sure there are literally no politicians seeking to take away your steering wheel. Interesting that you would see it as an attack on your personal freedom, but not as an emerging option that others might be free to choose, and in some cases an option that might significantly enhance there personal freedom of others.
A) Guess what it takes to fill that space with machinery and workers?
B) I tried to find the youtube video (youtube servers crashed before I found it!) I saw a week or two ago of people who had just been to the Tesla factory. They said that the Model 3 assembly line has taken up much of the remaining space and that if Tesla wants to build a Model Y they're going to need another factory.
Either way, there's much more money to be spent before they can produce millions of cars per year.
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Speaking of steering wheels, once cars have fully autonomous capabilities things like steering wheels, pedals, and dash boards become expensive add ons. So we'll have car makers eliminating them to cut costs in their cheaper cars and insurance companies charging more for cars that still have them. No need for politicians to get involved, even if for some reason they were so inclined! The market will eliminate cars without full-time autonomous driving.
Assembly lines are not small things. Was the space available larger than the space occupied by the Model 3 assembly line, and is that line 100% complete? Also, if they want to ramp up to 10,000 Model 3's per week in 2018, will that space be taken up by another line for the Model 3? Seems likely to me.
There's a reason Musk is talking about building up to 20 factories. Building cars, trucks, and Semis takes a lot of space, and a lot of money. There's still time (although not much) for Apple to get in on it and make a difference.
While Apple are following leaders like Google Waymo and Tesla with an autonomous driving system but the key difference is Apple will only be competing in developing countries where safety standards and regulations are looser so not in any Western countries.
LOL, buddy, do you even know exactly how cars work? Because your comment smells like you have no idea.
Those are two CONSUMER facing assistance systems. Do you even know how much line of code is required to time valves on an engine to ensure you're getting max torque and fuel to air burn efficiency at different throttle responses? That's on all Honda's and Toyota's bud, not even talking about BMW's or Porsche's, which have way more lines of code for engaging different throttle response settings.
Shall we talk about gear ratios and electric timing, or leave that for "How Cars Work 102"?
My point is, there is already so much tech in cars that is controlling aspects that you as the average Joe think are purely "mechanical" in nature, including the power steering. You, bud, have fallen into the general public that I described in my original comment: overestimating YOUR driving skills, and underestimating how much the car (even 1990's cars) is assisting you. If you don't believe me, try driving a Honda or Dodge without the ECU or EEMS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_control_unit), and fuel mixture switches and valve timings at your fingertips.
Dude, I am very well aware of the systems in my car, I even do software coding for my own car, in the cars original systems. Do you do that? What is "electric timing"? I've never seen a car trying to pace the electrons, that would be cool tech, but not sure why. Do YOU even know how engine management systems work at all? It doesn't seem that way (more than what you just read on wikipedia)
No, Porsches and BMWs do not have more lines of code, they mostly use off the shelf Bosch or Delphi systems like ME9, like so many other cars from the cheapest to the most expensive. Why would there be more code to "engaging different throttle response settings"? That is nonsense. The throttle can be programmed in just one single map in most modern cars. If you want different settings you just read from different places in the map, using variables and input like "sports button". ECU programming is not something that complicated. Most ECU systems are around 1MB of code and data, including all maps. It's not the code where you put in most effort, it's in the different maps that get the most out of different engine types. That's why you spend millions in the lab where you run engines at every possible situation.
Honestly what are you yappin about? We're not talking general electronics here, and I can assure you that the ECU is not by far the most complicated piece of electronics in a car.
This thread is about autonomous cars and drifted off to assistive systems in general. The ECU is _not_ an assistive system to the driver (as defined presently in the industry). Just because it's electronic, it's not assistive. It's just a cheaper and more efficient way of doing the exact thing that has been done since the birth of the car: making sure the engine gets fuel in the right amount and spark at the right moment.
I've driven very old cars, where almost nothing is "electronic", not even "electric", and I never had to worry about the timing of the spark. Nobody ever came up with the idea that the distributor where to be called an "assistive system" that offloaded work from the driver. Old Fords (like 1920s-30s-era) had the possibility to adjust the timing of the spark, before the vacuum-controlled distributor.
And, what's your point about cruise control and power steering being "consumer facing" system? Autonomous cars are not consumer facing? Sure, Siri is a bit thick sometimes, but at least she replies. An assistive system is a system that offloads work from the driver that he/she had to without this system. Therefore Cruise control, Power Steering and ABS/TCS/ESP offload work from the driver to a system that the driver otherwise had to do. The ECU does not offload the driver. Even a 50 year old car without any fancy management system still didn't require the driver to do any additional work compared to todays cars (well, maybe the choke).
In conclusion: yes mister, I'm very well aware of the intricacies of engine management systems, that tough, is not what this thread is about. It's about systems that assist the driver (you know, the consumer) in operating the vehicle and more specifically cars that can do it "all by themselves", a.k.a "autonomous cars".
No, Porsches and BMWs do not have more lines of code, they mostly use off the shelf Bosch or Delphi systems like ME9, like so many other cars from the cheapest to the most expensive. Why would there be more code to "engaging different throttle response settings"? That is nonsense. The throttle can be programmed in just one single map in most modern cars. If you want different settings you just read from different places in the map, using variables and input like "sports button". ECU programming is not something that complicated. Most ECU systems are around 1MB of code and data, including all maps. It's not the code where you put in most effort, it's in the different maps that get the most out of different engine types. That's why you spend millions in the lab where you run engines at every possible situation.
Honestly what are you yappin about? We're not talking general electronics here, and I can assure you that the ECU is not by far the most complicated piece of electronics in a car.
This thread is about autonomous cars and drifted off to assistive systems in general. The ECU is _not_ an assistive system to the driver (as defined presently in the industry). Just because it's electronic, it's not assistive. It's just a cheaper and more efficient way of doing the exact thing that has been done since the birth of the car: making sure the engine gets fuel in the right amount and spark at the right moment.
I've driven very old cars, where almost nothing is "electronic", not even "electric", and I never had to worry about the timing of the spark. Nobody ever came up with the idea that the distributor where to be called an "assistive system" that offloaded work from the driver. Old Fords (like 1920s-30s-era) had the possibility to adjust the timing of the spark, before the vacuum-controlled distributor.
And, what's your point about cruise control and power steering being "consumer facing" system? Autonomous cars are not consumer facing? Sure, Siri is a bit thick sometimes, but at least she replies. An assistive system is a system that offloads work from the driver that he/she had to without this system. Therefore Cruise control, Power Steering and ABS/TCS/ESP offload work from the driver to a system that the driver otherwise had to do. The ECU does not offload the driver. Even a 50 year old car without any fancy management system still didn't require the driver to do any additional work compared to todays cars (well, maybe the choke).
In conclusion: yes mister, I'm very well aware of the intricacies of engine management systems, that tough, is not what this thread is about. It's about systems that assist the driver (you know, the consumer) in operating the vehicle and more specifically cars that can do it "all by themselves", a.k.a "autonomous cars".
The bottom line here is that there's a lot of harrumphing about the prospect of autonomous automobiles, gassed up by the idea that the tech is incapable of being as reliable or responsive as a human driver. All that is misplaced. The engine control systems that you're dismissing as merely 'cheaper and more efficient' are way more than that. Those systems are monitoring all sorts of inputs and then working out optimal timing, fuel, air, etc. The efficiency is achieved because these systems are incredibly reliable. Likewise, the ever-increasing list of safety systems that are first options and then standard on modern vehicles are things that are both complex and highly reliable. ABS, traction control, lane assist, self-parking, automatic braking to prevent accidents are all examples. They're both complex and reliable, and they're there because they produce better results than most drivers can without them. Self-driving vehicles are just the next step in advancements.
Also, to an earlier comment, there actually are automated systems in existence to partially or fully control an aircraft's landing on an aircraft carrier. So yes, this kind of tech is happening on land, in the air, and at sea.