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The more I hear about Apple making a car, the more it seems inevitable. Apple's revenue is 180 billion dollars. If they enter a new market, it has to be big. H

The more I hear about Apple making a car, the more it seems inevitable. Apple's revenue is 180 billion dollars. If they enter a new market, it has to be big. How many high margin billion dollar industries are there? The entire watch market is just around $50 billion dollars a year. If Apple wants to continue growing like it did in the past, the watch is a distraction. They need to aim for something much bigger. Besides the financial reasons, I think it's the perfect time to break into the market. The switch to electric motors levels the playing field, giving newcomers an edge if they can move fast. But the most important part is the integration of all the systems in the car, most importantly the digital user interface. Todays cars have horrible interfaces. Manufacturers are too busy covering every possible niche with dozens of models, which makes it impossible for them to make a single great car. And even if they tried, they are too dependent on component suppliers to create a single, integrated experience of the kind Apple does. There are two questions I wonder about: 1. How will Apple be able to make use of their experience in electronics when they move to a completely new industry? 2. What are the technical tricks Apple has up their sleeve? The iPod had hard drives and the click wheel, the iPhone had multitouch and a SoC that enabled a real browser, the watch had force sensitivity, haptic feedback, and a pulse meter. What will the car have?

heimatau 11y ago
Speaking of a high margin billion dollar market, I'm surprised Apple doesn't get into high speed fiber. Maybe Apple feels they are mostly product development, idk.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  Last mile fiber is extremely capital intensive and not that profitable.
  - afarrell 11y ago
    And attempting to make it profitable would hurt their brand. Think about how much people hate Comcast and TWC.
Htsthbjig 11y ago
"How will Apple be able to make use of their experience in electronics when they move to a completely new industry?" Completely new industry? Who is the biggest user of lithium batteries in the world? Hint: It is a company with a fruit as a name. They started talks for collaboration with Tesla because if Tesla creates a Megafactory they HAVE TO use it or their battery prices will be higher than Tesla's. If they can't use it, they will create their own Megafactory. The electric motors in a electric car are incredible simple compared with internal combustion engines. The batteries are the most expensive item in a car by far. "What are the technical tricks Apple has up their sleeve?" They know abut batteries, they know about recharging batteries. More free capital than any other company in the world, access to the best electronic components and battery manufacturers, very important for power electronics. "What will the car have?" A good price. It will be expensive, like anything Apple does, but a very good price because of mass production that only Apple could afford(because they can invest billions on factories). Think on aluminum Apple computers, they sell at $1000, other companies compete with aluminum computers with a similar price. Apple earns 30% margins or more but competition could barely survive, because Apple was the first to sell those and sell in the millions and competition in the thousands.
- adventured 11y ago
  The broader point is a legitimate one, however Samsung is a bigger user of lithium batteries than Apple. Samsung has 21% of the smart phone market globally. Apple is at 14%. Samsung also sells a lot of feature phones using lithium batteries.
phkahler 11y ago
>> The switch to electric motors levels the playing field, giving newcomers an edge if they can move fast. It doesn't exactly level it. Any new player in the auto industry will have an enormous learning curve and spend billions just to bring their first car to market (I hear Ford spends a billion to bring a brand new model to market and they're established) and get production going. The shift to electric cars may be significant enough to consider it a new industry (replacing the old) where a new entrant could become a dominant player and hold that position even as everyone else slowly migrates. I guess in that sense it is a level playing field. I originally wondered why Apple would want to do a car until I thought about the above opportunity. That, along with the enormous amount of cash they have, go together. They need to aim really big to have a meaningful impact on the company. They could have bought Facebook, Twitter, or other startups all day long and it wouldn't have the same impact on their bottom line as becoming a dominant auto company. In fact Apple and Google DO buy small tech companies and I have yet to see one have the impact they could get from going big in electric cars (assuming those become a thing, which is not an unreasonable gamble IMHO). >> What are the technical tricks Apple has up their sleeve? At this point they don't need any. Make an affordable electric car and they win. If the price is right, people will buy every iCar they can produce. What apple brings to the table is money. IMHO all the other ones (except Tesla so far) have failed because they didn't have deep enough pockets to go all the way. That said, if it is a car, why the hell do it from CA instead of MI? That's the part I don't fully understand. I have some ideas, but I've never heard an official explanation. Of course they never actually said they're making car either have they?
pazimzadeh 11y ago
Car interiors are full of plasticky knobs that remind me of cell phone keys from 1995-2006. I think that Apple will have a lot of fun creating a new interfaces for everything inside the car, and I think they're wise enough not to try to replace all physical controls with a gigantic touch screen, unlike Tesla. I'm hoping that many functions won't need a UI any more, such as adjusting the mirrors: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=1187960 http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=118796...
- timdeneau 11y ago
  Well, if it’s fully autonomous as many suspect, the UI would be dramatically simplified compared to Tesla. Passengers would only need direct access to comfort controls, media playback, and an interactive map. I wouldn’t be surprised to see just a single large touch screen on the dashboard, with Siri listening for your directions.
- greglindahl 11y ago
  Tesla has physical controls on the steering wheel that access a lot of functions also available in the touch screen. HN posters who don't own Teslas often complain about the touch screen controls, while owners use the steering wheel controls. BTW, mirror adjustment on a Tesla doesn't use the touchscreen.
  - pazimzadeh 11y ago
    You got me, I've never been in a Tesla. A quick search shows that while the Tesla S has physical controls on the steering wheel, the Tesla Model X uses touchscreen (http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=65638&d=1418214878 http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=6...).
    - greglindahl 11y ago
      I assumed that the "gigantic touchscreen" referred to in your comment is the 17" monster on the right. The Model X hasn't shipped yet, so I don't know if that photo is the final configuration. If it is, and by "gigantic" you meant "The small, 2 inch touchscreens on the steering wheel which might be as easy to use as physical controls", then sure, we could talk about that. Seems premature right now, when the public can't try it out.
sandworm101 11y ago
The apple car will happen. That doesn't mean it will work in the long term. And it doesn't mean that Apple will be a market leader. See the iWatch, AppleTV and the iMac. Not all of their products are market-changers. Watch the car companies. If they thought the days of personal car ownership were over they would be in total panic. There is a strong Freudian association with cars ownership in north america. People are very proud of their cars. That isn't going away anytime soon. As I have said in other threads, if everyone wants diverless cars, why is there not a single car on the market hardwired to obey speed limits? I'll believe people ready to have their steering wheels taken away when I first see them give up control of their accelerators.
- kevinchen 11y ago
  With the Watch it's too early to tell, and they didn't really try on the TV until a few weeks ago. I'd say the Mac is doing pretty well :-) it remains profitable and even growing a little while competitors fight over breadcrumbs and try to post the smallest losses. And even if the Apple Car doesn't win on market share (it probably won't), it will lead the car industry in design like the Mac does for computers: Not everyone will own an Apple Car, but everyone's cars will be better because of it.
  - sandworm101 11y ago
    I wouldn't be that sure about Apple's design savvy. Making a fashionable computer was relatively easy. Nobody else was even trying before Apple came along. But cars? Thousands of designers have been working for decades on that one. BMW, Ferrari, Porsche, Honda ... billions of dollars and countless careers have been spent playing with every little detail. There isn't much that hasn't been tried before. This is what I see when someone mentions an "apple car": http://oldconceptcars.com/1930-2004/citroen-karin-concept-1980/ http://oldconceptcars.com/1930-2004/citroen-karin-concept-19...
sauere 11y ago
> "Manufacturers are too busy covering every possible niche with dozens of models" I agree. It amazes me how many models and variants there are. Look at Volkswagen, they have ~20-25 active Basemodels (Polo, Golf, Passat...) with each Basemodel having a addtional 15-20 variants. You can buy a Golf anywhere from 15k Euro to 40k Euro. But even a much smaller manufacturer such as Porsche has 9 Basemodels with nearly 200 variants. Who _really_ needs that? Granted, i never worked in the automobile industry, but the overhead with producing, developing and maintaining so many different models really seems insane.

heimatau 11y ago

Speaking of a high margin billion dollar market, I'm surprised Apple doesn't get into high speed fiber. Maybe Apple feels they are mostly product development, idk.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
Last mile fiber is extremely capital intensive and not that profitable.
- afarrell 11y ago
  And attempting to make it profitable would hurt their brand. Think about how much people hate Comcast and TWC.

Htsthbjig 11y ago

"How will Apple be able to make use of their experience in electronics when they move to a completely new industry?" Completely new industry? Who is the biggest user of lithium batteries in the world? Hint: It is a company with a fruit as a name. They started talks for collaboration with Tesla because if Tesla creates a Megafactory they HAVE TO use it or their battery prices will be higher than Tesla's. If they can't use it, they will create their own Megafactory. The electric motors in a electric car are incredible simple compared with internal combustion engines. The batteries are the most expensive item in a car by far. "What are the technical tricks Apple has up their sleeve?" They know abut batteries, they know about recharging batteries. More free capital than any other company in the world, access to the best electronic components and battery manufacturers, very important for power electronics. "What will the car have?" A good price. It will be expensive, like anything Apple does, but a very good price because of mass production that only Apple could afford(because they can invest billions on factories). Think on aluminum Apple computers, they sell at $1000, other companies compete with aluminum computers with a similar price. Apple earns 30% margins or more but competition could barely survive, because Apple was the first to sell those and sell in the millions and competition in the thousands.

adventured 11y ago
The broader point is a legitimate one, however Samsung is a bigger user of lithium batteries than Apple. Samsung has 21% of the smart phone market globally. Apple is at 14%. Samsung also sells a lot of feature phones using lithium batteries.

phkahler 11y ago

>> The switch to electric motors levels the playing field, giving newcomers an edge if they can move fast. It doesn't exactly level it. Any new player in the auto industry will have an enormous learning curve and spend billions just to bring their first car to market (I hear Ford spends a billion to bring a brand new model to market and they're established) and get production going. The shift to electric cars may be significant enough to consider it a new industry (replacing the old) where a new entrant could become a dominant player and hold that position even as everyone else slowly migrates. I guess in that sense it is a level playing field. I originally wondered why Apple would want to do a car until I thought about the above opportunity. That, along with the enormous amount of cash they have, go together. They need to aim really big to have a meaningful impact on the company. They could have bought Facebook, Twitter, or other startups all day long and it wouldn't have the same impact on their bottom line as becoming a dominant auto company. In fact Apple and Google DO buy small tech companies and I have yet to see one have the impact they could get from going big in electric cars (assuming those become a thing, which is not an unreasonable gamble IMHO). >> What are the technical tricks Apple has up their sleeve? At this point they don't need any. Make an affordable electric car and they win. If the price is right, people will buy every iCar they can produce. What apple brings to the table is money. IMHO all the other ones (except Tesla so far) have failed because they didn't have deep enough pockets to go all the way. That said, if it is a car, why the hell do it from CA instead of MI? That's the part I don't fully understand. I have some ideas, but I've never heard an official explanation. Of course they never actually said they're making car either have they?

pazimzadeh 11y ago

Car interiors are full of plasticky knobs that remind me of cell phone keys from 1995-2006. I think that Apple will have a lot of fun creating a new interfaces for everything inside the car, and I think they're wise enough not to try to replace all physical controls with a gigantic touch screen, unlike Tesla. I'm hoping that many functions won't need a UI any more, such as adjusting the mirrors: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=1187960 http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=118796...

timdeneau 11y ago
Well, if it’s fully autonomous as many suspect, the UI would be dramatically simplified compared to Tesla. Passengers would only need direct access to comfort controls, media playback, and an interactive map. I wouldn’t be surprised to see just a single large touch screen on the dashboard, with Siri listening for your directions.
greglindahl 11y ago
Tesla has physical controls on the steering wheel that access a lot of functions also available in the touch screen. HN posters who don't own Teslas often complain about the touch screen controls, while owners use the steering wheel controls. BTW, mirror adjustment on a Tesla doesn't use the touchscreen.
- pazimzadeh 11y ago
  You got me, I've never been in a Tesla. A quick search shows that while the Tesla S has physical controls on the steering wheel, the Tesla Model X uses touchscreen (http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=65638&d=1418214878 http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=6...).
  - greglindahl 11y ago
    I assumed that the "gigantic touchscreen" referred to in your comment is the 17" monster on the right. The Model X hasn't shipped yet, so I don't know if that photo is the final configuration. If it is, and by "gigantic" you meant "The small, 2 inch touchscreens on the steering wheel which might be as easy to use as physical controls", then sure, we could talk about that. Seems premature right now, when the public can't try it out.

sandworm101 11y ago

The apple car will happen. That doesn't mean it will work in the long term. And it doesn't mean that Apple will be a market leader. See the iWatch, AppleTV and the iMac. Not all of their products are market-changers. Watch the car companies. If they thought the days of personal car ownership were over they would be in total panic. There is a strong Freudian association with cars ownership in north america. People are very proud of their cars. That isn't going away anytime soon. As I have said in other threads, if everyone wants diverless cars, why is there not a single car on the market hardwired to obey speed limits? I'll believe people ready to have their steering wheels taken away when I first see them give up control of their accelerators.

kevinchen 11y ago
With the Watch it's too early to tell, and they didn't really try on the TV until a few weeks ago. I'd say the Mac is doing pretty well :-) it remains profitable and even growing a little while competitors fight over breadcrumbs and try to post the smallest losses. And even if the Apple Car doesn't win on market share (it probably won't), it will lead the car industry in design like the Mac does for computers: Not everyone will own an Apple Car, but everyone's cars will be better because of it.
- sandworm101 11y ago
  I wouldn't be that sure about Apple's design savvy. Making a fashionable computer was relatively easy. Nobody else was even trying before Apple came along. But cars? Thousands of designers have been working for decades on that one. BMW, Ferrari, Porsche, Honda ... billions of dollars and countless careers have been spent playing with every little detail. There isn't much that hasn't been tried before. This is what I see when someone mentions an "apple car": http://oldconceptcars.com/1930-2004/citroen-karin-concept-1980/ http://oldconceptcars.com/1930-2004/citroen-karin-concept-19...

sauere 11y ago

> "Manufacturers are too busy covering every possible niche with dozens of models" I agree. It amazes me how many models and variants there are. Look at Volkswagen, they have ~20-25 active Basemodels (Polo, Golf, Passat...) with each Basemodel having a addtional 15-20 variants. You can buy a Golf anywhere from 15k Euro to 40k Euro. But even a much smaller manufacturer such as Porsche has 9 Basemodels with nearly 200 variants. Who _really_ needs that? Granted, i never worked in the automobile industry, but the overhead with producing, developing and maintaining so many different models really seems insane.