6 ms·

I'm personally very skeptical about an Apple Car appearing any time soon, although people like Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway treat it as a certainty. If Appl

I'm personally very skeptical about an Apple Car appearing any time soon, although people like Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway treat it as a certainty. If Apple were to sell a car they'd need a whole network of authorized repair centers and part distribution. Even if they do a slow rollout starting in the US, that's a whole lot of country to cover. They could start by selling it in just a few cities... but they can't limit where people will drive to, and people stranded with a bricked car, many hundreds of miles away from a service center would be a bad look. Also, with iPhones and Macs a lot of their ability to provide worldwide repairs is based on entirely replacing whole parts (screen, logic board, battery) which I don't imagine is as easy with a car for multiple reasons. When Apple created the Apple stores it was a mean feat of entering a new space (retail)... but they already designed and built the product, and did repair and distribution... so entering retail was just reaching vertically a bit more. An Apple car is a whole new "stack" where they only have a minimal part (software / user experience)... so risks / unknowns are much much bigger. ... All of this would not be the case if Apple were to partner with a car manufacturer that already has a network for sales, parts and repairs, and they just add their "UX magic". But I understand they tried and failed at this... maybe because car companies either don't want the rug being pulled from beneath their feet, operate at low margins, or think they can do user experience better than Apple.

neuronic 5y ago
Maybe the wide swaths of US country side are different, but for the (Western) European countries we need less cars and not more. I love cars and driving but the mobility today is a smelly nightmare. 55 million Germans have insufficient public transport available [1] - they are dependent on cars. 64 million Germans live in cities. So even in cities, public transport is bad for quite a few million people. It's often not profitable to provide these services in certain areas, sparking discussions about privatization of public transport. At the same time, roads and infrastructure are increasingly incapable of supporting all the individual cars. Congestion, traffic jams and just overall shitty "UX" hamper people's lives and by extension the economy. The denser the area, the more true this becomes. Munich and Berlin both have major issues with their public transport. Munich grew really fast in the last 20 years and it's system is measurably worse than Vienna, for example. I use car sharing a lot but it is only useful to an extent and doesn't seem to have the promised effect of reducing cars on the road (or rather standing around parking 95% of the time). [1] https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/deutschland/innenpolitik/id_91039862/55-millionen-deutsche-mit-schlechtem-oepnv-wie-gut-sind-sie-angebunden-.html https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/deutschland/innenpolitik... (Disclaimer: this study was done by a mobility startup BUT I honestly believe it to be accurate from experience)
- reaperducer 5y ago
  Maybe the wide swaths of US country side are different, but for the (Western) European countries we need less cars and not more. In theory, self-driving cars will mean fewer cars, not more. Instead of owning your own car, you just summon one from a pool to take you where you need to go. When you get there, it becomes available for someone else to summon. It's like Uber, but without any people. That's the one vision of self-driving cars that I like.
  - azinman2 5y ago
    Uber and Lyft have been known to add more cars to SF than before. Public transit fits many more people per vehicle than a car does.
    - dwaite 5y ago
      > Uber and Lyft have been known to add more cars to SF than before The emergence of a faster, more convenient and in many cases cleaner alternative to BART/Caltrain created demand. To top it all off, the cost was comparable in many cases for a while. In the past, one of my 32 minute Uber rides was a > 2.5 hour trip on mass transit around the Bay Area on the weekend. I'm all for supporting mass transit, but that is a fool's bet.
  - Zababa 5y ago
    That sounds like a worse version of public transportation.
    - mulmen 5y ago
      Why can’t it supplement public transport? I have to walk 15 minutes to take a 20 minute bus to a transit station. I could drive there in 10 minutes. Self-driving cars seem ideal for last mile transit.
      - Zababa 5y ago
        That's a fair point, though usually the usefulness of cars and public transportation are inversely correlated. Starting with a good foundation for public transportation would reduce a lot the need for cars for commuting in the city.
sharikous 5y ago
If Tesla made it, Apple can too. From what I understand they already invested a lot of money in research for their car. It seems strange to just let go of that, but of course it is possible
- dkonofalski 5y ago
  Sometimes, you do a lot of research just to tell you that you shouldn't do something too... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    Yes, Dyson invested a ton of money just to discover they couldn't compete with their EV. https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/james-dyson-his-companys-cancelled-electric-car-project https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/james-dyson-his-...
- penjelly 5y ago
  sunk cost fallacy, just because money was spent doesnt mean more money spent is justifiable
- elondaits 5y ago
  That could be money spent building fully functioning prototype cars to attract a partner and/or experimenting with AI, Lidar, etc. to see what kind of breakthroughs they could offer... Or even seeing if they can design a car that can be serviced as easily as an iPhone by replacing large parts. ... Or maybe they're really doing 100% a car. ... Just that in their history they never jumped so completely into a wholly new kind of product with such complex logistics... so I find it hard to see it as a sure thing.

neuronic 5y ago

Maybe the wide swaths of US country side are different, but for the (Western) European countries we need less cars and not more. I love cars and driving but the mobility today is a smelly nightmare. 55 million Germans have insufficient public transport available [1] - they are dependent on cars. 64 million Germans live in cities. So even in cities, public transport is bad for quite a few million people. It's often not profitable to provide these services in certain areas, sparking discussions about privatization of public transport. At the same time, roads and infrastructure are increasingly incapable of supporting all the individual cars. Congestion, traffic jams and just overall shitty "UX" hamper people's lives and by extension the economy. The denser the area, the more true this becomes. Munich and Berlin both have major issues with their public transport. Munich grew really fast in the last 20 years and it's system is measurably worse than Vienna, for example. I use car sharing a lot but it is only useful to an extent and doesn't seem to have the promised effect of reducing cars on the road (or rather standing around parking 95% of the time). [1] https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/deutschland/innenpolitik/id_91039862/55-millionen-deutsche-mit-schlechtem-oepnv-wie-gut-sind-sie-angebunden-.html https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/deutschland/innenpolitik... (Disclaimer: this study was done by a mobility startup BUT I honestly believe it to be accurate from experience)

reaperducer 5y ago
Maybe the wide swaths of US country side are different, but for the (Western) European countries we need less cars and not more. In theory, self-driving cars will mean fewer cars, not more. Instead of owning your own car, you just summon one from a pool to take you where you need to go. When you get there, it becomes available for someone else to summon. It's like Uber, but without any people. That's the one vision of self-driving cars that I like.
- azinman2 5y ago
  Uber and Lyft have been known to add more cars to SF than before. Public transit fits many more people per vehicle than a car does.
  - dwaite 5y ago
    > Uber and Lyft have been known to add more cars to SF than before The emergence of a faster, more convenient and in many cases cleaner alternative to BART/Caltrain created demand. To top it all off, the cost was comparable in many cases for a while. In the past, one of my 32 minute Uber rides was a > 2.5 hour trip on mass transit around the Bay Area on the weekend. I'm all for supporting mass transit, but that is a fool's bet.
- Zababa 5y ago
  That sounds like a worse version of public transportation.
  - mulmen 5y ago
    Why can’t it supplement public transport? I have to walk 15 minutes to take a 20 minute bus to a transit station. I could drive there in 10 minutes. Self-driving cars seem ideal for last mile transit.
    - Zababa 5y ago
      That's a fair point, though usually the usefulness of cars and public transportation are inversely correlated. Starting with a good foundation for public transportation would reduce a lot the need for cars for commuting in the city.

sharikous 5y ago

If Tesla made it, Apple can too. From what I understand they already invested a lot of money in research for their car. It seems strange to just let go of that, but of course it is possible

dkonofalski 5y ago
Sometimes, you do a lot of research just to tell you that you shouldn't do something too... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  Yes, Dyson invested a ton of money just to discover they couldn't compete with their EV. https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/james-dyson-his-companys-cancelled-electric-car-project https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/james-dyson-his-...
penjelly 5y ago
sunk cost fallacy, just because money was spent doesnt mean more money spent is justifiable
elondaits 5y ago
That could be money spent building fully functioning prototype cars to attract a partner and/or experimenting with AI, Lidar, etc. to see what kind of breakthroughs they could offer... Or even seeing if they can design a car that can be serviced as easily as an iPhone by replacing large parts. ... Or maybe they're really doing 100% a car. ... Just that in their history they never jumped so completely into a wholly new kind of product with such complex logistics... so I find it hard to see it as a sure thing.