Apple iCar -- Your Thoughs?

[MEDICALJMP]

Apple stock rises, Tesla dips after report that ‘iCar’ could emerge in 2024

Published: Dec. 21, 2020 at 4:06 p.m. ET
By
Wallace Witkowski


Apple Inc. shares AAPL, +1.24% closed higher Monday following a report that the tech giant is targeting 2024 as the year it produces a passenger vehicle.

Apple intends to move ahead with its own version of self-driving car technology including a “breakthrough” battery design following a project that began in 2014, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Apple declined to comment to Reuters on its plans.

Apple shares finished up 1.2% at $128.23, after being down as much as 2.5% earlier in the session, with a noticeable gain directly after the report hit late in the session.

Tesla Inc. shares TSLA, -6.49% finished down 6.5% at $649.86, following a session where the stock reached an intraday high of 3.8% below Friday’s closing price, and declined directly after the report was released.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a...rt-that-icar-could-emerge-in-2024-11608584812
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The ‘Apple car’ chatter is back with new reports pointing to a 2024 launch date
Kirsten Korosec@kirstenkorosec / 5:07 PM CST•December 21, 2020


The demise of the Apple car, the technology giant’s not-so-secret secret project, was perhaps overstated. Apple’s so-called Project Titan, which last year reduced the team by some 200 employees, is not only alive, it has plans to produce an electric passenger vehicle with “breakthrough battery technology” and automated vehicle technology by 2024, according to a report from Reuters.

It’s unclear what the vehicle will look like, who will be the manufacturing partner or if the self-driving system that Apple has been working on will be part of the car or offered as a software product to other companies. The Reuters article builds off of another report from Taiwanese media outlet Economic Daily Times, which describes Apple ramping up orders for auto parts and components from suppliers in the country. Together, the reports offer confirmation that Apple, while quiet and with a smaller team, hasn’t ditched the idea of a car after all.

Reuters sources describe this as a passenger vehicle, which would put Apple in a different category than autonomous vehicle technology companies like Waymo that are trying to commercialize robotaxi services. (Waymo has said that it is also interested in licensing its AV tech for passenger vehicles, but it’s not the company’s first priority.)


The day-to-day operations of Apple’s Project Titan is led by Doug Field, who returned to the company in 2018 after a stint at electric automaker Tesla. Field, who was senior vice president of engineering at Tesla, was one of the key executives behind the launch of the Model 3. Under Field’s leadership, it appears the Apple car might square off more directly with Tesla than say Alphabet’s Waymo.

Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that Apple has moved Field and the rest of the Project Titan team under Apple executive John Giannandrea’s artificial intelligence and machine-learning group.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/21/t...h-new-reports-pointing-to-a-2024-launch-date/

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2024 is a long time away and this is just "unnamed sources" at Apple. There has been a lot of chatter over the last 6 years about an Apple car. They may want to get into the car manufacturing business or wind up selling the architecture for autonomous driving. Either way, if another company could step successfully into the electric car market it would be Apple with their $125+ billions of dollars socked away for a rainy day.

What are everyone's' thoughts on this? Yes, it is not iTruck, but interesting news.

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[FutureBoy]

So here's the thing. Everyone wants to know what an Apple car will be like because they were so successful with the iPod and iPhone. But both of those products broke into markets that were in horrible disarray with no clear leadership in technology. Remember the old MP3 players? Remember flip phones? How about Blackberry? Sure there were a lot of devices out in the marketplace but other than Blackberry, no one was in love with their device. The devices were just way more convenient than the previous replaced technology.

Then Apple comes in and revolutionized the marketplace. And they built their tech in an easy to use, much more capable, and beautifully designed way. Of course those sold (hind site here and all).

But what about the iCar? Well, if Tesla did not exist, I would be completely on board with the idea that Apple was going to take over the market and blow everyone's minds. But Tesla already out-Apple'd Apple. Tesla vehicles have already revolutionized the electric automobile. People already love Tesla vehicles. Kids and adults alike see Tesla's and walk over to admire, jump, dance, and ogle the Tesla. In Seattle I see them all over the place and still notice when one is driving near me. I don't think it will be very easy for Apple to just come in and take over the market for electric vehicles.

Now, having said that. There are over a billion cars already out in the world. And basically, all of them are still ICE and need to be replaced. So it really doesn't matter if Tesla is the market leader. There is still a ton of available market for Apple to come in and still make a killing. Will Apple overtake Tesla for dominance? Who knows. They would probably need to have some pretty astounding vehicles and features. But Tesla has a huge head start. And even if Apple can overtake Tesla, that doesn't make Tesla a failure. In fact I'd argue it is even more of a sign of Tesla's success. They proved that there was a market for EVs, they created a path for success, and they executed so well that other companies jumped in too.

Looking at the height of the ICE vehicle dominance, there were still quite a number of automobile companies out there. So let's say that Apple and Tesla both end up selling as many vehicles as they can possibly produce for the next 20 years. I'd argue that there will still be room for other manufacturers. That is, assuming that Tesla doesn't have yet another ace up its sleeve.

 

[Crissa]

These articles are written terribly. I'm pretty sure Tesla's stock didn't shift. And these aren't new things, Apple changed around their car plans again weeks ago.

-Crissa

Basically, these are unfounded rumors. Yes, Apple is working with cars, but it has no manufacture for batteries, so how could it happen like these news articles breathlessly describe?

 

[Nathon]

Nope...

 

[Bond007]

I'll believe it when I see it. Show me at least a prototype. If there's none, it's no better than vaporware.

 

[Sirfun]

These articles are written terribly. I'm pretty sure Tesla's stock didn't shift. And these aren't new things, they changed around their car plans again weeks ago.

-Crissa

Friday Tesla was hovering around $655 for half an hour, with one second on the clock, a massive buy came in and set the closing price at $695. Very strange, then of course over the weekend there was nobody willing to pay close to that. Almost anyone with knowledge of the stock market is expecting Tesla to go down in price, to come down out of the clouds. Maybe some time in the next week or so when it dips would be a GREAT time to buy.

 

[emden09]

So let’s try to sum up my thoughts on Apple Car.

First and most significant knowledge about Autonomous driving: „It’s the data stupid“.

So how much data from what fleet does Apple have collected until today and what fleet will collect them data until 2024? Even if someone with a lot of fantasy finds an answer that is not “zero” it will be near zero compared to the billions of miles on autopilot data Tesla has collected up until today.

Second most relevant thought on autonomous driving: “It will be solved only once”.

Today every car is only driving 5% of its lifetime. So if someone produces autonomous vehicles and integrates them into a fleet aka MAAS (or colloquial robotaxi) and makes those drive only 60% of the day, that will replace the necesity for 12 of todays cars. So if, e.g. Tesla solves Autonomy first and produces lets say only 500.000 cars a year that will be able to replace 6 Million other cars per year. Where should there be room for s/o else solving autonomy?

And that’s where we come to Apple. Apple has no glue about producing Hardware. At least since the Apple IIe they did not produce any Hardware themselves anymore.

Apple is a catalog engineering company. Their proficiency is not to invent new stuff. Their proficiency is not to produce stuff. Apples expertise is designing the outer appearance and integrating existing products with software. Actually they are only doing the GUI part of the software. Even their operating system is not engineered by Apple but is a Unix Operating System with an Apple GUI (and some drivers for the Apple ROM).

So lets say, Apple really wants to find a Foxconn, building cars who’s outer appearance (aka design) and Software GUI is engineered (or better designed) by Apple. Lets say, they integrated that cars well into the Apple Eco-System. Can anybody tell me, how those cars will be competing in terms of margin with cars produced by a company that is vertically integrated as well as Tesla is.

Or lets say, Apple don’t want to beat Tesla, how would they compete to NIO, BYD, Xpeng… ? Probably an Foxconn/Apple-car would have a chance to compete to other – not so well vertically integrated companies cars like VW, Volvo, Mercedes or BMW. But actually the market for these companies will have vanished by 2024 if – what I strongly believe – autonomy is solved within the two years coming.

At the end lets have a view on Apple marketing. There is actually two sorts of products in the Apple Eco-System. First there is products they are talking about for years but never unveil or even produce like Apple Glasses, Apple Lenses you name one. And then there is products they unveil as “one last thing” and already have them produced by s/o ready to market one or two month later. The latter is real Apple products. The products mentioned first are just some FUD marketing to find out if there would be a market if they tried to occupy one.

So now it’s your turn in which of those two Apple-products-categories does the Apple car apply to?

BTW: No, English is not my native language. So their might be errors in my grammar.

 

[EVCanuck]

I am not concerned. The difference is Tesla has Elon Musk, Apple unfortunately doesn't have Steve Jobs anymore. Whatever Apple is claiming as revolutionary will probably be regular in 2024. Then it will be a 10 year development project, that speed of development would be unacceptable for Steve Jobs.

 

[braddibbnd]

I'm not concerned about Apple getting into the car business either. They could buy a car company with the cash they have for the manufacturing assets and vendors needed. But it would be a long time to break even much less make any money for the next decade.
I'm more interested in the BEV prototype that Sony built.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a30429376/sony-vision-s-concept-revealed/

 

[MEDICALJMP]

So let’s try to sum up my thoughts on Apple Car.

First and most significant knowledge about Autonomous driving: „It’s the data stupid“.

So how much data from what fleet does Apple have collected until today and what fleet will collect them data until 2024? Even if someone with a lot of fantasy finds an answer that is not “zero” it will be near zero compared to the billions of miles on autopilot data Tesla has collected up until today.

Second most relevant thought on autonomous driving: “It will be solved only once”.

Today every car is only driving 5% of its lifetime. So if someone produces autonomous vehicles and integrates them into a fleet aka MAAS (or colloquial robotaxi) and makes those drive only 60% of the day, that will replace the necesity for 12 of todays cars. So if, e.g. Tesla solves Autonomy first and produces lets say only 500.000 cars a year that will be able to replace 6 Million other cars per year. Where should there be room for s/o else solving autonomy?

And that’s where we come to Apple. Apple has no glue about producing Hardware. At least since the Apple IIe they did not produce any Hardware themselves anymore.

Apple is a catalog engineering company. Their proficiency is not to invent new stuff. Their proficiency is not to produce stuff. Apples expertise is designing the outer appearance and integrating existing products with software. Actually they are only doing the GUI part of the software. Even their operating system is not engineered by Apple but is a Unix Operating System with an Apple GUI (and some drivers for the Apple ROM).

So lets say, Apple really wants to find a Foxconn, building cars who’s outer appearance (aka design) and Software GUI is engineered (or better designed) by Apple. Lets say, they integrated that cars well into the Apple Eco-System. Can anybody tell me, how those cars will be competing in terms of margin with cars produced by a company that is vertically integrated as well as Tesla is.

Or lets say, Apple don’t want to beat Tesla, how would they compete to NIO, BYD, Xpeng… ? Probably an Foxconn/Apple-car would have a chance to compete to other – not so well vertically integrated companies cars like VW, Volvo, Mercedes or BMW. But actually the market for these companies will have vanished by 2024 if – what I strongly believe – autonomy is solved within the two years coming.

At the end lets have a view on Apple marketing. There is actually two sorts of products in the Apple Eco-System. First there is products they are talking about for years but never unveil or even produce like Apple Glasses, Apple Lenses you name one. And then there is products they unveil as “one last thing” and already have them produced by s/o ready to market one or two month later. The latter is real Apple products. The products mentioned first are just some FUD marketing to find out if there would be a market if they tried to occupy one.

So now it’s your turn in which of those two Apple-products-categories does the Apple car apply to?

BTW: No, English is not my native language. So their might be errors in my grammar.

Your English is better than many natives, so no worries there.

There are many good points that have been posted on this thread. There were two stories in various reputable sources last night that added or contradicted to the ones above. One was a Twainese newspaper reporting that several materials manufacturers were supposed to be getting parts ready for Apple for a 2021 production.

My two cents worth: I'll believe it when I see it, all else is cheap talk, rumor, and hopeful speculation.

 

[Crissa]

Apple does build its operating system, but there's no reason to use a non-unix system. It solves lots of issues - it's not like they're buying packages off the open source market, they make the programs that hold things together.

I think they're doing it for the same reason Sony is: They have software and tech, and want it to integrate with cars. And traditional manufacturers aren't interested in advancing the technology.

The same reason those traditional manufacturers are being eaten into by Tesla.

-Crissa

 

[K Doc Brown 007]

Apple does things with a lot of thought into functionality and connectivity. I think it’ll be interesting to have Apple involved in EV space. Ideally, I think they should buy Fisker. ?Fisker design, Apple technology and OEM manufacturing.... that’s a very interesting combination- but obviously wild speculation ?

 

[TruckElectric]

Apple to use Toshiba SCiB Li-ion battery

 

[Bond007]

Apple does things with a lot of thought into functionality and connectivity. I think it’ll be interesting to have Apple involved in EV space. Ideally, I think they should buy Fisker. ?Fisker design, Apple technology and OEM manufacturing.... that’s a very interesting combination- but obviously wild speculation ?

The problem with Fisker is that Henrik Fisker doesn't like to be bossed around (His history with BMW, Tesla, etc proves that he has an issue with authority above him). He wants the car company to be his own fiefdom and wants to run it as it is. But the issue is that he is only a designer (and that is where his excellence ends) and he doesn't seem to have the managerial, engineering, problem solving skills, and other expertise needed to run an industrial powerhouse efficiently. He ends up outsourcing critical parts to incompetent people / third parties which eventually bite back at him. If Apple buys out Fisker he will become an employee on their payroll, and Henrik wouldn't want that.
The compounding problem is that Apple is also a design firm essentially (even though software is their Forte too). So you can see two characters with design excellence clashing and bring realistically little else to the table (okay, Apple is bringing something else too - read next message). They still need to outsource production to someone else.
Okay that is just my limited understanding of the issues with Fisker and why I think Apple will not buy them out.

 

[Bond007]

Apple to use Toshiba SCiB Li-ion battery

This looks like the most accurate response to my knowledge.

Per this Video Apple is most likely to acquire Lucid motors in order to produce its autonomous car.