4 ms·

Am I the only one who doesn't buy the "Apple canceled the car project because it couldn't do full self driving" story? Obviously they would have had to create

Am I the only one who doesn't buy the "Apple canceled the car project because it couldn't do full self driving" story? Obviously they would have had to create a simpler project before the fsd car. Just like they did the iPod before they did the iPhone.

ghaff 3y ago
Yes. But you can also get into a project and realize a commercially viable output is going to take too long and cost too much. (And pretty much every auto manufacturer already has assistive driving systems at some level.)
- throwaway4good 3y ago
  My personal guess is that it is related to Apple's ability to use the Chinese supply chain which is no longer politically tenable.
  - pc86 3y ago
    That certainly is a guess.
- nerdjon 3y ago
  Wasn't that even stated in one of the reports recently that the problem was not that they couldn't do it but the commercial viability of it and wether to could ever actually make money? A problem with how much it would cost. I highly doubt the problem was, can Apple build a car? They have enough money that they could probably hire the people to do just about anything they wanted to try. Not really sure how you simplify making a car enough to make it worth getting into the market at all in the first place.
  - Ekaros 3y ago
    They could outright buy some reasonable profile existing manufacturer. But actually entering the market and getting Apple like margins and volumes... Very doubtful. Cars are significantly more expensive than even the VR headset or top of the line computers.
brookst 3y ago
If anyone made the claim that the tech was the problem, that’s just naive. I read all the reports as “the totality of the project, from tech to manufacturing to distribution to service to business model, was not viable”.
- JoeAltmaier 3y ago
  Yet others have done it. Reads like crying It's too hard for us! More like, it would take too long to become profitable, and this company is not interested in long-term goals.
  - mynameisvlad 3y ago
    Not every company needs to build every single thing. You’re making it seem like axing an unprofitable product is a bad thing.
  - brookst 3y ago
    This is the company selling a $3500 AR headset, and who built a chip design expertise so they have vertical integration to silicon? And who pours money into not directly monetizable ecosystem features like phone calls on laptops and tablets? Not interested in the long term?
    - JoeAltmaier 3y ago
      This is also the company that hired 5000 engineers to work on anything that occurred to them, under some monkeys-typewriter theory of software. Condensed the project down into one totally ridiculous moss-covered three-handled family credenza of a thing that was completely unmarketable. Fired all those same people a couple years later. If some of us have less confidence than others in their prognostications, well, there are reasons.
- throwaway4good 3y ago
  Failure to do fsd as the key reason was first mentioned here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-03-03/why-was-apple-car-canceled-the-hubris-in-apple-thinking-it-could-outdo-tesla-ltbke5ut https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-03-03/why-wa... Apple’s Car Was Doomed by Its Lofty Ambitions to Outdo Tesla And repeated numerous times. The article was written by the same Bloomberg journalist who broke the story that the project was canceled.
Tagbert 3y ago
The original goal wasn't to just build a car. lots of companies are doing that and the financial returns are limited. It would have been a poor investment for Apple. Apple wanted to launch true self-driving transportation. That would have been revolutionary and when they started, many people thought that was a goal that could be realized in 5-10 years. Since then we have learned that self-driving and much more complex and harder to get right. Apple seems to have tried some different approaches to the problem, but eventually they decided it was not worth pursuing and cancelled the project. It was inevitable that they would have to lay off some people with skills that could not translate to other products. What is amazing is that they seem to have been able to retain 70% of that team.

ghaff 3y ago

Yes. But you can also get into a project and realize a commercially viable output is going to take too long and cost too much. (And pretty much every auto manufacturer already has assistive driving systems at some level.)

throwaway4good 3y ago
My personal guess is that it is related to Apple's ability to use the Chinese supply chain which is no longer politically tenable.
- pc86 3y ago
  That certainly is a guess.
nerdjon 3y ago
Wasn't that even stated in one of the reports recently that the problem was not that they couldn't do it but the commercial viability of it and wether to could ever actually make money? A problem with how much it would cost. I highly doubt the problem was, can Apple build a car? They have enough money that they could probably hire the people to do just about anything they wanted to try. Not really sure how you simplify making a car enough to make it worth getting into the market at all in the first place.
- Ekaros 3y ago
  They could outright buy some reasonable profile existing manufacturer. But actually entering the market and getting Apple like margins and volumes... Very doubtful. Cars are significantly more expensive than even the VR headset or top of the line computers.

brookst 3y ago

If anyone made the claim that the tech was the problem, that’s just naive. I read all the reports as “the totality of the project, from tech to manufacturing to distribution to service to business model, was not viable”.

JoeAltmaier 3y ago
Yet others have done it. Reads like crying It's too hard for us! More like, it would take too long to become profitable, and this company is not interested in long-term goals.
- mynameisvlad 3y ago
  Not every company needs to build every single thing. You’re making it seem like axing an unprofitable product is a bad thing.
- brookst 3y ago
  This is the company selling a $3500 AR headset, and who built a chip design expertise so they have vertical integration to silicon? And who pours money into not directly monetizable ecosystem features like phone calls on laptops and tablets? Not interested in the long term?
  - JoeAltmaier 3y ago
    This is also the company that hired 5000 engineers to work on anything that occurred to them, under some monkeys-typewriter theory of software. Condensed the project down into one totally ridiculous moss-covered three-handled family credenza of a thing that was completely unmarketable. Fired all those same people a couple years later. If some of us have less confidence than others in their prognostications, well, there are reasons.
throwaway4good 3y ago
Failure to do fsd as the key reason was first mentioned here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-03-03/why-was-apple-car-canceled-the-hubris-in-apple-thinking-it-could-outdo-tesla-ltbke5ut https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-03-03/why-wa... Apple’s Car Was Doomed by Its Lofty Ambitions to Outdo Tesla And repeated numerous times. The article was written by the same Bloomberg journalist who broke the story that the project was canceled.

Tagbert 3y ago

The original goal wasn't to just build a car. lots of companies are doing that and the financial returns are limited. It would have been a poor investment for Apple. Apple wanted to launch true self-driving transportation. That would have been revolutionary and when they started, many people thought that was a goal that could be realized in 5-10 years. Since then we have learned that self-driving and much more complex and harder to get right. Apple seems to have tried some different approaches to the problem, but eventually they decided it was not worth pursuing and cancelled the project. It was inevitable that they would have to lay off some people with skills that could not translate to other products. What is amazing is that they seem to have been able to retain 70% of that team.