Apple shuts down EV project

[Morris Minor]

Good move. This always seemed like an off-mission pain in the ass distraction for Apple. Now if they could only  develop a range of high-end TVs with baked-in tvOS... 🤔

RIP Apple Car. This Is Why It Died
Any tech company moving into the auto space needs a manufacturing partner. But the Apple's EV died as it lived: alone.
More:
https://www.wired.com/story/rip-apple-car-this-is-why-it-died/

[veeman]

I wonder how much of this is related to the increasing likelihood that full self driving cars are a fairy tale in the foreseeable future. 

[GoCougs]

Huge cash investment. Long product cycles. Extensive supply chain. Low margins. Endless regulation. Knuckle-dragging labor unions. It was a bad idea from the get-go. Autonomous driving = fairy tale was probably part of it. IMO, the largest factor is that EVs simply are not a viable business and there is no path to get there.

[CaminoRacer]

I'm surprised the project was even started, much less lasted this long.

[Laconian]

A ZIRP period dalliance to pump the stock, I'm guessing.

[FoMoJo]

If people don't want to be bothered operating the controls of a vehicle they should take the train, or a horse.

[ChrisV]

IMO, the largest factor is that EVs simply are not a viable business and there is no path to get there.

This is rather false. The issue is and was autonomous driving AND trying to ground-up a car company (which is much more difficult than a phone company).

[GoCougs]

I'm surprised the project was even started, much less lasted this long.

A ZIRP period dalliance to pump the stock, I'm guessing.

Apple has/had tens of billions of $$$ on hand and hadn't had a Big Thing since the iPad in 2010. So why not?

At the time Apple started, EV + AD looked like it was going to change the world. Turns out not so much (at all).

[giant_mtb]

Status quo Apple...they'll wait 'til the tech is viable/profitable and they can put their own twist on it, elevate/perfect-ish it, and make people really want it for Apple prices.

[CaminoRacer]

I find it interesting that companies like Tesla have managed to get the general public to see EV, AV, and touch-screen only interior controls are as a combined new tech & way forward into the future, when in reality they can all be completely separate and exist without the others.

[SJ_GTI]

I find it interesting that companies like Tesla have managed to get the general public to see EV, AV, and touch-screen only interior controls are as a combined new tech & way forward into the future, when in reality they can all be completely separate and exist without the others.

It's disappointing to me. I'd love a car with an electric drivetrain but otherwise keep the car fairly conventional. I thought this was something the more old-fashioned car companies would do but they mostly went to the other extreme and tried to out-Tesla Tesla.

[GoCougs]

I find it interesting that companies like Tesla have managed to get the general public to see EV, AV, and touch-screen only interior controls are as a combined new tech & way forward into the future, when in reality they can all be completely separate and exist without the others.

WtP buy Tesla (hook/line/sinker), not EV and/or AV and/or full touch interior.

[Rich]

I wish I could choose the FullTouch™️ interior option.

[CaminoRacer]

I wish I could choose the FullTouch™️ interior option.

I think there are some massage places that offer it

[GoCougs]

This is rather false. The issue is and was autonomous driving AND trying to ground-up a car company (which is much more difficult than a phone company).

No. Apple didn't get within a trillion miles of starting a car company; i.e., zero investment in production and supply chain. Apple's efforts were in industrial design, electronics and "software."

The plan was to have an established automaker actually build the car. Thing is, after a bit of time, EVs were shown to not be viable business for them, so by definition it wouldn't have been for Apple, either.

[ChrisV]

No. Apple didn't get within a trillion miles of starting a car company; i.e., zero investment in production and supply chain. Apple's efforts were in industrial design, electronics and "software."

The plan was to have an established automaker actually build the car. Thing is, after a bit of time, EVs were shown to not be viable business for them, so by definition it wouldn't have been for Apple, either.

Um, no. It was all about Apple's autonomous driving that wasn't viable and what they wanted to work (and spent al the money on). EVs are still increasing in sales at least 50% year after year. They ARE a viable business, but autonomous driving is not. It also started the project in 2014 as an EV to Rival Tesla, then changed into and AD project, then very recently back into a Tesla fighter, but by then they had spent 10 billion on it. But, as the NYT has reported, "But it festered and ultimately fizzled in large part because developing the software and algorithms for a car with autonomous driving features proved too difficult."

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/28/technology/behind-the-apple-car-dead.html

For the last decade, many Apple employees working on the company's secretive car project, internally code-named Titan, had a less flattering name for it: the Titanic disaster. They knew the project was likely to fail.

Throughout its existence, the car effort was scrapped and rebooted several times, shedding hundreds of workers along the way. As a result of dueling views among leaders about what an Apple car should be, it began as an electric vehicle that would compete against Tesla and morphed into a self-driving car to rival Google's Waymo.

By the time of its death — Tuesday, when executives announced internally that the project was being killed and that many members of the team were being reassigned to work on artificial intelligence — Apple had burned more than $10 billion on the project and the car had reverted to its beginnings as an electric vehicle with driving-assistance features rivaling Tesla's, according to a half dozen people who worked on the project over the past decade.

The car project's demise was a testament to the way Apple has struggled to develop new products in the years since Steve Jobs's death in 2011. The effort had four different leaders and conducted multiple rounds of layoffs. But it festered and ultimately fizzled in large part because developing the software and algorithms for a car with autonomous driving features proved too difficult.

I know you don't like EVs because you really don't know what you're talking about, but this really proves it.

[GoCougs]

Um, no. It was all about Apple's autonomous driving that wasn't viable and what they wanted to work (and spent al the money on). EVs are still increasing in sales at least 50% year after year. They ARE a viable business, but autonomous driving is not. It also started the project in 2014 as an EV to Rival Tesla, then changed into and AD project, then very recently back into a Tesla fighter, but by then they had spent 10 billion on it. But, as the NYT has reported, "But it festered and ultimately fizzled in large part because developing the software and algorithms for a car with autonomous driving features proved too difficult."

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/28/technology/behind-the-apple-car-dead.html
 

I know you don't like EVs because you really don't know what you're talking about, but this really proves it.

Uff da - been a while since that exchange. Here, let me help you by rebaselining with facts (commentation):

1.) Autonomous doesn't work - Apple's flavor or otherwise (Kudos to Apple however for giving up on a pig-in-a-poke);
2.) Apple didn't try to "ground-up" an auto company (Kudos to Apple for planning to partner with a legacy automaker);
3.) EVs are not a viable business because automakers (GM, Ford, Rivian, Lucid, Toyota, etc.) tell you it's not a viable business (EV sales have increased but market share has dropped = viability not remotely close).

[Morris Minor]

I would not have believed this 18 months ago but now we're dipping our toes into the realm of embodied AI, I now think autonomous, or close to it, is achievable.

[MrH]

I would not have believed this 18 months ago but now we're dipping our toes into the realm of embodied AI, I now think autonomous, or close to it, is achievable.

How soon?  Want to put a fun wager on it?   

[giant_mtb]

I would not have believed this 18 months ago but now we're dipping our toes into the realm of embodied AI, I now think autonomous, or close to it, is achievable.

It is also achievable that I build a rocket and take it to the moon.  It's achievable, and possible, but that doesn't mean it's gonna happen.

[AutobahnSHO]

I would not have believed this 18 months ago but now we're dipping our toes into the realm of embodied AI, I now think autonomous, or close to it, is achievable.

I honestly don't think so.

"AI" is just more complicated algorithms using larger sources of data. It's just too complex to weave AI model 1 which can do a specific thing together with AI model 2 which can do a different specific thing and hope they can actually make decent decisions.

[Morris Minor]

I'm not going to wager on when. There's one consistently 100% uniform human trait: we are incredibly bad at predicting the future. Like asking a hamster to do calculus.

That said, I think it's feasible. It won't come from a legacy car manufacturer; they are metal benders, already retreating to hybrids with grafted-on outsourced ADAS systems... keep Joe Lunchpail's union happy and the cylinders pumping gases.

It'll come from a software house with a small team of computer scientists driving it.

The big challenge will be regulatory, clarifying accountability while not doing a European Union: suffocate it at birth.

[AutobahnSHO]

It'll come from a software house with a small team of computer scientists driving it.

The big challenge will be regulatory, clarifying accountability while not doing a European Union: suffocate it at birth.

True and true. The big dogs don't innovate enough.

The new dogs don't know how to wade through the paperwork game as well.