Apple: Rumors of EV to Challenge Tesla or Buying Tesla

[SBenson]

I know I am in the minority in viewing Apple as a considerable threat.

Apple Wanted To Use BMW i3 As Basis For Its Own Electric Car: Report

It destroys Apple's reputation (at least for me).

BMW i3 is one truly hideous car. Once you see it, you can never un-see it. BMW went out of it's way to come up with some serious ugliness. People have said they wouldn't want to be caught getting out of the car even with ski masks.

Not sure what Apple wants to base off of it. Terrible move.

 

[drinkerofkoolaid]

I know I am in the minority in viewing Apple as a considerable threat.

Apple Wanted To Use BMW i3 As Basis For Its Own Electric Car: Report

The key words are "Wanted To". My guess, assuming there is any truth to the rumor, is Apple changed its mind after seeing the i3, and how uncompetitive it is compared to other vehicles.

 

[Zzzz...]

It destroys Apple's reputation (at least for me).

BMW i3 is one truly hideous car. Once you see it, you can never un-see it. BMW went out of it's way to come up with some serious ugliness. People have said they wouldn't want to be caught getting out of the car even with ski masks.

Not sure what Apple wants to base off of it. Terrible move.

Even if Apple had chosen to use i3 platform as a base for their model, the car would have got different body and totally different look. It would not have been i3 with Apple badge instead of BMW. So how i3 looks is irrelevant.

And I think Apple will be better off developing their own platform anyway.

 

[EVNow]

It makes sense for Apple to try to use the newest materials and technologies. So clearly i3 would be a good starting point - irrespective of how it looks.

 

[drinkerofkoolaid]

It makes sense for Apple to try to use the newest materials and technologies. So clearly i3 would be a good starting point - irrespective of how it looks.

Maybe the Model X or Model 3 is what Apple is secretly planning to use liquid metal for? Would make a lot of sense. Liquid Metal is less expensive and stronger than aluminum, and easier to mold. This would reduce the cost of the Model 3 significantly, the frequency of scratches and dents, as well as the cost of repairs. It would probably also have a positive effect on performance and range.

The ability to be cast and molded, combined with high wear resistance, has also led to Liquidmetal being used as a replacement for plastics in some applications

https://liquidmetaltech.wordpress.com/about-liquidmetal/
Autonomous convergence and divergence of the self-powered soft liquid metal vehicles | EurekAlert! Science News

 

[EVNow]

Maybe the Model X or Model 3 is what Apple is secretly planning to use liquid metal for?

Almost reminds of EEStor. Any news remotely connected to autos/batteries would be spun by believers as relating to EEStor.

I can see Apple designing the car and getting it built using BMW CF technology in Ireland or China or wherever. If the tour of the i3 factory by Tim Cook and others from Apple is true (I'd tend to think it is) - it is possible this is what Apple had in mind.

Though it is equally likely they went to meet a long time corporate partner and BMW took them on a tour of their latest factory.

 

[smorgasbord]

BMW i3 is one truly hideous car.

That's what they said about the Chrysler Airflow:

Less than a decade later, all cars were aerodynamic and some looked more daring.

In my opinion, we have to get over how we think cars should look. Our views are polluted by decades of cars with internal combustion engines up front. Now that we have electric drive, we don't need the hood and so we should design differently.

 

[Johan]

That's what they said about the Chrysler Airflow:

View attachment 88734

Less than a decade later, all cars were aerodynamic and some looked more daring.

In my opinion, we have to get over how we think cars should look. Our views are polluted by decades of cars with internal combustion engines up front. Now that we have electric drive, we don't need the hood and so we should design differently.

Quite right.

My view is that were Apple to make a car, an EV obviously, it would likely be quite beautiful, easy to operate (intuitive) and have above-average performance. In short people would want one.

But it wouldn't be compatible with any known charging standards and very expensive and difficult to repair.

 

[jbcarioca]

...
My view is that were Apple to make a car, an EV obviously, it would likely be quite beautiful, easy to operate (intuitive) and have above-average performance. In short people would want one.

But it wouldn't be compatible with any known charging standards and very expensive and difficult to repair.

Sure, now imagine with Microsoft: Maybe pretty in some version, others not. Everyone would be authorized to repair but nobody would know how to make a repair. Warranty would be only from the dealer, not transferrable to another dealer. All defects would be due to suppliers or users, each of which would have distinct warranty, including the user obligation for technical training and repair authorizations (charging would be regarded as a 'repair' thus invalidating all other warranties if performed by a non-certified driver. We also cannot forget the requirement to reboot whenever temperature is too high or low, speed is too high or low, in stop/go traffic, or stopping in short distances.

But, the price would be a fraction of that of either Apple or Tesla and the paper functions would appear to be comparable. Online updates would also be available, but only from unlisted dial-up internet connections which will be charged fro by calendar time connected regardless of speed. There is always the help desk, available by postal service only.

 

[Robert.Boston]

In my opinion, we have to get over how we think cars should look. Our views are polluted by decades of cars with internal combustion engines up front. Now that we have electric drive, we don't need the hood and so we should design differently.

Hood = crumple zone. That's why there's a frunk in the Model S.

 

[smorgasbord]

Hood = crumple zone. That's why there's a frunk in the Model S.

Lots of ways to get a crumple zone in an EV without a big hood like Model S. The engine compartment is NOT part of the crumple zone, since engines don't compress, so front-engined cars need to add the crumple zone in front.

The mid-engined Koenigsegg Regera, for instance, doesn't have a big hood:

Face it, Tesla designed Model S to appeal to people who think a car should look like an ICE car. That was obviously a smart business decision, but not my cup of tea.

 

[RobStark]

Lots of ways to get a crumple zone in an EV without a big hood like Model S.

The mid-engined Koenigsegg Regera, for instance, doesn't have a big hood:

True and True.

Two other truths. Toyota Previa passed all federal crash standards and neither it nor the Regera are the safest cars ever made.

Face it, Tesla designed Model S to appeal to people who think a car should look like an ICE car. That was obviously a smart business decision, but not my cup of tea.

Again two obvious truths.

They designed to appeal to the widest possible audience that is why Tesla is worth North of $30B and why Aptera is bankrupt.


The design needs to play well in Normal Illinois as well as Oslo Norway.


Designing for super cool guy hipsters from SF and LA is not the way to run a successful "green" automotive company that will impact the world.

 

[wdolson]

Quite right.

My view is that were Apple to make a car, an EV obviously, it would likely be quite beautiful, easy to operate (intuitive) and have above-average performance. In short people would want one.

But it wouldn't be compatible with any known charging standards and very expensive and difficult to repair.

It would also cost more than comparable cars. Apple paints themselves into corners by trying to push technologies onto the world. They succeeded with new twists on existing products. They didn't invent the tablet computer, the smartphone, or even the personal computer. The took those technologies that others had pioneered, but failed to sell very well and packaged them in a way people wanted. They have been less successful at pushing new standards out onto the world. Firewire was their answer to USB, but while they still have it on some of their computers, they gave up and went with USB many years ago. They also try to force consumers to do things a certain way which I personally find unintuitive. When I had an Android phone, it took me about an hour to load a custom ringtone, wallpaper, and some other things onto it, then configure it. When I got an iPhone a couple of years later, it took me 8 hours to do the same thing.

They refused to make it easy to network Macs with Windows computers for a very long time. One place I worked, the engineers all had Windows/DOS machines (this was the early 90s) and the managers and office assistants all had Macs. Doing something simple like transferring a Word document to the Macs required logging into the Mac with an FTP account. And the internal file structure of the Mac via FTP was the thing of nightmares.

If and when Apple builds a car, they will probably try to do a bunch of things nobody has ever done before and who knows if it will catch on or not. If they do team up with an established car maker, they are likely going to have a lot of problems. I saw a YouTube lecture the other day given by one of the top engineers at Tesla who talked a little about their experiences dealing with established car makers early on. The car makers fundamentally distrusted software and could not fathom controlling the motor with software to the extent Tesla does. They were mortally afraid of the motor going berserk like some kind of Hollywood AI gone bad and put in physical stops made out of steel to prevent the things Tesla made sure wouldn't happen in their software design.

To build cars in quantity, a company has to be large. It's the nature of the product. Tesla is still getting there, they are still young and flexible and innovation is bred into the corporate culture, so it will probably stay there for some time. All but a few of the world's mass market car companies have been around for a long time. Most since before World War II. Some over 100 years. They have "the _____ way" of doing things (fill in the blank with the company name) and any interloper who wants to stray too far from that model is going to be dismissed as naive at best.

Apple definitely has the cash to go into the car business. They can self fund a company like Tesla and can probably survive a longer without profit than Tesla could. I'm not sure they are the same company they were under Steve Jobs. Jobs micromanaged every major project and he constantly adjusted his vision as the project evolved. He was probably one of the best industrial designers of all time. Tim Cook has a lot of Jobs' ideas passed on before he died and he's trying to stay true to Jobs' vision, but without Jobs right on top of things, I think they are straying. The iWatch is the first all new product since Jobs died and while it may turn out to be a big hit, I saw a lot of reviewers didn't like it and personally I was wondering what unfulfilled market niche they were going after. About the only people who might want it would be runners. I'm one of those dinosaurs who still wears a wrist watch, but it's over 20 years old now and I have no desire for anything bigger.

It would be smart for Apple to draft off of Telsa's success and adopt some of Tesla's innovations, but they are so pig headed about doing their own thing, I could see them setting up a competing iCharger network rather than teaming with Tesla on the Superchargers, even if they end up with almost identical technology.

 

[DriverOne]

Nice Apple rant.

Apple is rubbish and never did anything I like. Despite that, Jobs was a genius - but now under Cook, Apple is doomed. Gee I've never read anything like that before :smile:

 

[Incredulocious]

Nice Apple rant.

Apple is rubbish and never did anything I like. Despite that, Jobs was a genius - but now under Cook, Apple is doomed. Gee I've never read anything like that before :smile:

Heh, yeah. Does get old.

To wdolson, let me point out that you have a somewhat narrow and distorted view of all the Apple has managed to do. For example, contrary to your "Firewire was their answer to USB", Apple actually was able to jump start Intel's USB by being first to integrate USB: they actually replaced the legacy ports with USB with the introduction of the iMac. A bold move. Until they did, USB was stuck in a chicken-and-egg situation. (And USB peripherals followed quickly after.) This is something that was a common problem on the Windows side of the world as the system software and hardware were developed by many different companies with different priorities. Another example of this is Apple's introduction of WiFi to the first iBook: first wireless networking in a laptop! Long before that, Apple had integrated easy wired networking and incredibly easy file-sharing. It was a long road for DOS/Windows to build up their abilities – and always frustrating to have to work with.

Anyway, a little different perspective than you here and I shouldn't let myself get drawn in on an Apple debate, but the Cook vs. Jobs thing and Apple is doomed thing always sounds so ridiculous. You've heard bad "reviews" about the Watch?? Don't you remember the early comments with the introduction of the iPod, iPhone or iPad? And besides, what is early success? Outselling all other "smart watches" in the first few weeks? (Still not interested in wearing anybody's watch myself but I'm certainly not going to predict its demise!)

As for an Apple car? It sounds like a crazy fit, but then I was initially surprised and confused by the introduction of the iPod too. (After owning one for a while though I started thinking... wait... what if this device eventually evolved into a general, super-mobile, personal computing device?!) Knowing the culture at Apple and their continued desire to strive to make a positive impact on the world, it's possible for me to imagine Cook and others thinking, like Elon, what better way to help make the world a better place (by getting us off of burning oil and screwing with our climate).

 

[dalalsid]

Heh, yeah. Does get old.

To wdolson, let me point out that you have a somewhat narrow and distorted view of all the Apple has managed to do. For example, contrary to your "Firewire was their answer to USB", Apple actually was able to jump start Intel's USB by being first to integrate USB: they actually replaced the legacy ports with USB with the introduction of the iMac. A bold move. Until they did, USB was stuck in a chicken-and-egg situation. (And USB peripherals followed quickly after.) This is something that was a common problem on the Windows side of the world as the system software and hardware were developed by many different companies with different priorities. Another example of this is Apple's introduction of WiFi to the first iBook: first wireless networking in a laptop! Long before that, Apple had integrated easy wired networking and incredibly easy file-sharing. It was a long road for DOS/Windows to build up their abilities – and always frustrating to have to work with.

Anyway, a little different perspective than you here and I shouldn't let myself get drawn in on an Apple debate, but the Cook vs. Jobs thing and Apple is doomed thing always sounds so ridiculous. You've heard bad "reviews" about the Watch?? Don't you remember the early comments with the introduction of the iPod, iPhone or iPad? And besides, what is early success? Outselling all other "smart watches" in the first few weeks? (Still not interested in wearing anybody's watch myself but I'm certainly not going to predict its demise!)

As for an Apple car? It sounds like a crazy fit, but then I was initially surprised and confused by the introduction of the iPod too. (After owning one for a while though I started thinking... wait... what if this device eventually evolved into a general, super-mobile, personal computing device?!) Knowing the culture at Apple and their continued desire to strive to make a positive impact on the world, it's possible for me to imagine Cook and others thinking, like Elon, what better way to help make the world a better place (by getting us off of burning oil and screwing with our climate).

In spite of those examples new hardware features are not an Apple strong point. Ecosystem & premium design is their strong point. With the iPhone 3G - late, LTE - late, NFC - late, Big Screens - late, Widescreen - late. The problem I see with the Apple watch (or any smartwatch) is that people who wear watches like to wear different watches for different occasions. Phones etc., people have only one. As for Apple making a car, I'm all for it. Apple buying Tesla, totally against it even though Tesla followed by Apple are my two biggest investments. Well unless SCTY blows it out of the park today and rises a few % to rise to number 2.

 

[techmaven]

In spite of those examples new hardware features are not an Apple strong point. Ecosystem & premium design is their strong point. With the iPhone 3G - late, LTE - late, NFC - late, Big Screens - late, Widescreen - late. The problem I see with the Apple watch (or any smartwatch) is that people who wear watches like to wear different watches for different occasions. Phones etc., people have only one. As for Apple making a car, I'm all for it. Apple buying Tesla, totally against it even though Tesla followed by Apple are my two biggest investments. Well unless SCTY blows it out of the park today and rises a few % to rise to number 2.

This is a terrible way of looking it.

Apple doesn't just add tech in order to check off a spec sheet.

In both 3G and LTE adoption, the initial chipsets are really power hungry and truly not ready to put into handsets. That didn't stop various manufacturers other than Apple in putting out first generation handsets with terrible battery life.

NFC is still not used by Apple for anything but the contactless payment... mainly because it's not deemed all that useful for anything but. And most importantly, what is transmitted across the NFC link is completely different from earlier contactless NFC implementations. Apple doesn't ship a terrible NFC implementation that leaks your payment information as others have done.

Apple's focus has been on shrinking the handset... the big screens in phones, while nice in terms of screen real estate, is an ergonomic nightmare. It's relatively easy to design a big screen phone. So much more volume for the battery, for heat dissipation, and so forth. It's hard to have that much CPU power, battery life, and so forth in the small volume of an iPhone 5 or 5s.

On the other hand, Apple shipped a host of hardware features early... maybe not the first, but leading in terms of real volume. It's again, easy to be first if you ship only a few. Apple has been leading in HiDPI adoption, both in terms of shipping hardware and evolving their software ecosystem to leverage it properly. Shipping 10/20 Gb I/O interconnect in ThunderBolt is also early. Shipping direct PCI bus connected SSD's in consumer devices at consumer pricing levels is also early. Magnetic latching power cables, unibody aluminum chassis, and so forth. You can go back in history and examine the Apple Newton, the Laserwriter, the Quicktake, and so forth for early technology leads.

However, Apple doesn't typically ship technology just to be first to check off a spec sheet item. Typically, there's a lot more effort to it, to see that the technology makes a proper difference in customer usability and satisfaction.

There are a lot of parallels between Tesla and Apple. For example, some people write off Tesla has just a company that merely packaged up someone else's tech (Panasonic NCA cells) and it's all easy. And yet, Panasonic didn't ship the Model S. No one else did either. Apple is famous for taking technology in its infancy and figuring out the right way to package it and put it within an ecosystem and context for consumer usability and satisfaction.

As for EV's, anyone that thinks that Apple's past is a guide to a new market hasn't followed Apple very well at all. $200 billion in the bank helps provide a feeling of liberation from the past. What Apple is good at is taking complex things and do a lot of the heavy lifting to make them appear simple and intuitive to their customers.

Apple could certainly mount a significant challenge to any automaker. If Tesla can do it on a shoe-string budget - maybe around $5 billion all in, then Apple could certainly do it. And the best way is to listen to the experts, listen the customers, plot the trends in technology, and then hire all the necessary people. So far, we haven't seen/heard any significant manufacturing associated with this project, so it will still be some time if they ever do ship their own vehicle. It will take some time to build up the manufacturing capability from the battery cells through the main assembly and so forth.

 

[dalalsid]

This is a terrible way of looking it.

Apple doesn't just add tech in order to check off a spec sheet.

I look at it (as far as the iPhone goes) as Apple adds tech at exactly the latest time possible before which absence of that tech would crater sales. Also they need to drop the top and bottom bezel from the iPhones. I agree with you on the rest.

Edit:
Also this is why Apple and Tesla cannot go together. Tesla adds everything into the car that they can and activate it using software later. Apple could have easily done that with NFC (among other things)

 

[techmaven]

I look at it (as far as the iPhone goes) as Apple adds tech at exactly the latest time possible before which absence of that tech would crater sales. Also they need to drop the top and bottom bezel from the iPhones. I agree with you on the rest.

Again... look at the performance per watt on the A series of Apple CPUs. The A7 shipped with 64 bit wide words, leveraging an AArch64 ISA cleanup and, combined with runtime and language changes, leveraged tagged pointers and inline reference counts. The results in benchmarks and on real code was a significant boost past the competitors at both raw performance and performance per clock and per watt. Real, tangible improvements based on the latest tech in both hardware and software. You don't design your own ARM core implementation "at the last minute" nor do you redesign your object runtime with your own compiler at the last minute.

Apple resisted the larger screen because their own ergonomic research shows that it is suboptimal, market be damned. Their pursuit for smaller, thinner, and lighter sometimes gets the best of them. Again, it is harder to do smaller, thinner, and lighter... much easier to do bigger.

Apple again resisted dropping the bezels... because Touch ID is such a huge win. Again, others have fingerprint sensors. Apple's is the best of the widespread implementations. And Touch ID is built into the ecosystem that is Apple Pay that required bank and credit card processor support. These things take years of hard work and cooperation to bring to market. Definitely not latest time possible. NFC payments as implemented by everyone else is a security abomination. NFC is but a mere speck in the ecosystem that was required to bring Apple Pay to customers. One time credit card numbers, secure element, trusted computing, touch ID, back end processing support, bank support, and more was necessary to bring it to market.

Other handset makers brought power hungry LTE chipsets that were never intended for handsets to market first. Woo hoo. They overclocked their CPUs. They shipped quad core processors and octo core processors when they knew that their software stack really doesn't benefit much from being that wide. The resulting power usage meant that they had to ship big phones in order to hold the 2500 mAh or bigger batteries to get even decent battery life when those cores fire up. The resulting heat levels meant that these phones rapidly drop down to under 1 GHz under any sustained load. Even then, these 2.0+ GHz phones lose out to the same generation 1.2-1.3 GHz Apple ARM cores in real world tasks.

 

[Johan]

Thanks for the insight Maven.

Consumers don't understand all this, naturally, but they do understand "it just works, well". I know all the Apple haters laugh at this, yet here I am writing this from an iPhone that rarely (bordering on never) crashes.

I would really be interested in an Apple car.