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Apple Gears Up to Challenge Tesla in Electric Cars

124 points by tysone 12y ago

bcolb 12y ago
Reading the title I thought to myself "Why not just link the WSJ article then?" Answer: Paywall
- Dotnaught 12y ago
  Enter WSJ headline into Google News search box. The corresponding link bypasses the paywall.
  - bcolb 12y ago
    Right you are! Here's the link for anyone interested: http://www.wsj.com/articles/apples-titan-car-project-to-challenge-tesla-1423868072 http://www.wsj.com/articles/apples-titan-car-project-to-chal...
    - delecti 12y ago
      It would seem the link only works if the referral is from google.
    - notatoad 12y ago
      this one should work. https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fapples-titan-car-project-to-challenge-tesla-1423868072&ei=_JveVIeAMcq0oQSJxYKQBA&usg=AFQjCNFSnuEADDX0xPbswEMF-f9lqscQYw&sig2=8JYgfDH-b2Ivq03pWZMKdg&bvm=bv.85970519,d.cGU https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd...
calvintennant 12y ago
"Apple would be looking to make such an enormous leap from its core competency — building great consumer electronics". Don't electric cars fall into the category of consumer electronics?
- delecti 12y ago
  I agree that they phrase it oddly, but I would argue that cars are a product category with more user expectations about the particulars of functionality, and is thus less open to apple's typical refinements.
- TrainedMonkey 12y ago
  My first thought as well, if anything I can think of two reasons why Apple would be building their own car: 1. Compete in luxury electric automotive market. Motivation is there, but I find it dubious that Apple will go for it. On the other had Apple does have everything they need to become strong player in this field (engineers, cash, supply chain, strong U.S. lobbying presence, and army of lawyers) 2. Get competence on how to build cars in order to be able to rapidly prototype integration of Apple products with car entertainment systems. Possibly design said entertainment systems for car manufacturers, or at least influence the design to give apple products an edge.
- pbreit 12y ago
  No.
  - Alterlife 12y ago
    No? Could you explain? Did the old film cameras fall under consumer electronics? I don't think so. What about analog telephones from the 90's? What about overhead projectors and phonograph players (I hope that's what they were called)? Those devices have changed. I have to imagine the umbrella of 'consumer electronics' is constantly expanding. In the long term, why would cars be any different?
    - agumonkey 12y ago
      A car is still in a different device category. It has to be a lot more dependable and secure then a phone, with deeper social implications (life critical). Jobs managed to slip the antennagate under the rug, you can't do that with cars. IMHO this is not the kind of knowledge you can imprint in a company in a few years safely.
trhway 12y ago
DMCA - the law to protect platforms - has very interesting implication of silo-ization of the tech. Any tech, like in "tech"nology civilization. Marching into the brave new world of silos, a car is an easy addition to Apple platform, while GM would need to build a platform to add to their cars.
- orbifold 12y ago
  I think you are deluding yourself, if you believe that an average person would choose their car based on the entertainment system.
  - ndespres 12y ago
    I'm sure many would. In modern cars where nearly everything is computer-controlled and un-serviceable by the end user, safety is pretty much guaranteed, and fuel economy is average.. what other choices are there? It's just as plausible that someone would choose a car based on built-in entertainment options as that they'd do so based on color scheme.
  - trhway 12y ago
    >I think you are deluding yourself, if you believe that an average person would choose their car based on the entertainment system. who said entertainment system? Design is among, if not the, main aspects when people decide on tech choice. With cars being electric - simple commoditized drivetrain - design will become even more important.
    - orbifold 12y ago
      I'm pretty sure design wise the entertainment system would be the only thing they could beat the designers of Porsche, Mercedes etc. at, I have less doubt that they might be able to kill off some of the American car manufacturers.
      - trhway 12y ago
        >the only thing they could beat the designers of Porsche, Mercedes etc. i think electric cars for some segment like "Millenial urbanites" would be a market where Porsche and Mercedes don't have any starting advantage in car design over Apple as all their established design themes of high power/dynamics, masculinity, posh-ness, etc... wouldn't resonate that much there.
pasta_2 12y ago
Nice of Elon Musk to open source Tesla's patents, will make things easier for Apple.
- click170 12y ago
  Who would you rather buy from though? The innovator, or the imitator? Price may be the differentiating factor, but I think most ppl would choose the innovator.
  - delecti 12y ago
    I think Apple has a big enough name that them being the "imitator" won't scare anybody off. I also think that Apple is a bigger household name than Tesla.
  - alex8022 12y ago
    Most people don't decide which product to buy based on who was first. If a competitor produces a quality alternative, they will compare the two and buy the one they like more (Where the product they like more is subjective and base on many factors).
  - Cookingboy 12y ago
    People buy from whoever makes the best product at the best price. Regular consumers can careless about who had the original idea, they only care about who executed best.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      > People buy from whoever makes the best product at the best price. People buy from whoever does the best marketing (that is, whoever makes them feel like they are getting the best product for them.) > Regular consumers can careless about who had the original idea (Nitpick: "careless" is not the same thing "care less") Regular consumers probably do care about originality, which is why being "the original X" often plays a key role in marketing, in products in a wide array of different markets. If it wasn't something consumers tended to care about, it wouldn't likely be a perennial marketing point. It is, of course, not the only thing consumers care about, obviously. > they only care about who executed best Arguably, they don't care directly about who executed best, they care about who they trust to execute best for them. Evidence about having executed well to others, like being the original in a category, may be indicators by which consumers judge that likelihood.
orand 12y ago
At first I thought this was crazy. Then I realized it's all about extending Apple's ecosystem of hardware + software + services. Better together. Plus, they make their profits off hardware.
- orand 12y ago
  Wow, two downvotes in ten minutes! I'm honestly at a loss as to why. If anyone could clue me in, I'd be grateful. Thanks. Edit: very funny, you mysterious downvoters. Now the downvotes are on _this_ comment, and the original one has been upvoted 4 times. And I still haven't learned how/why I should change my behavior in the future. The only thing I've learned is that up/down voting seems to be random.
  - ohquu 12y ago
    Stop caring so much.
    - orand 12y ago
      I don't care. And I'm not offended or upset in the slightest. I'm simply curious. And mildly amused.
      - bsdetector 12y ago
        Karma actually has a real value on HN because it prevents some people from downvoting. If an Google fan keeps an Apple fan below the karma threshold then the Apple fan won't be able to shape future discussions. The system encourages people to downvote even reasonable comments that are from the "other team". You ran into somebody like that.
        orand 12y ago
        Ah, interesting! Thanks for sharing. I thought my comment was fairly ambiguous as to which "team" I'm on (I develop for both iOS and Android), but I guess when it comes to these kinds of polarizing politics, if someone doesn't immediately identify with your viewpoint, you must be from the "other team".
pokstad 12y ago
Very interesting, but what is Wall Street Journal's success rate with Apple rumors? I know it's higher than most, but that was probably due to Walt Mossberg (who has left WSJ in recent times).
- culturestate 12y ago
  The Journal is traditionally Apple's outlet of choice when they want to leak something, but they've been a little bit hit-and-miss lately. Maybe something's changed since Katie Cotton left.
3327 12y ago
I would say apple has no domain expertise and they should focus on what they focus on. This is positive news for the "future" no matter how it is seen. It might very well be the largest mistake Apple has ever done and seal its demise or the smartest move and they will be a global dominant company even more so than today...
- api 12y ago
  Apple has more than enough money to try 50 experiments like this.
  - prawn 12y ago
    Or even just five large-scale projects. Surely one would be a TV. Smart TVs right now are woeful, and just providing a weak set-top box on the side might provide something at an accessible price point, but it doesn't solve the real problem. An ideal smart TV would pre-fetch EPGs to load and switch quickly, have an optional social layer over the video feed (like what Xbox One proposed), and more naturally fit in with other hardware and ways of getting media to the screen.
    - Cthulhu_ 12y ago
      And not, you know, have always-on voice recognition and a camera and stuff. Or advertising.
  - larrys 12y ago
    And enough money to buy an existing car company and/or joint venture.
- hmottestad 12y ago
  The only domain expertise they had on phones was the itunes phone with motorola. And then they launched the iphone. Same goes for the ipod. Only thing they had expertise in was computers. And with computers becoming extremely important for cars, they might just have a chance. Just as much as google, and they don't have any particular domain knowledge either (ie. they have never sold a car before).
Geee 12y ago
It's probably 10 years off, but I bet it will be a self-driving one. That isn't a car anymore, but a moving computer, which makes it a natural fit for Apple.
- prostoalex 12y ago
  From WSJ: "A self-driving car is not part of Apple’s current plan, one of the people familiar with the project said."
  - michas 12y ago
    "Never believe anything until it has been officially denied."
- foobarian 12y ago
  I'm skeptical. Self-driving systems are extremely software heavy, and Apple is not a software house. It just doesn't make sense.
  - snowwrestler 12y ago
    Apple is not a software house? They produce two OS's with development tooling and applications, they run some of the largest online services on the Internet, and they just released their own new programming language. What would a software house look like?
    - ams6110 12y ago
      Software for a self-driving car has to be built to a standard that's entirely different from anything they've had to build to before. Lives are at stake.
      - epistasis 12y ago
        Based on my experience with desktop software, I'd take the Apple software over pretty much any other vendor every day of the week. Funnily enough, nobody seems to question Google's chops when it comes to making self driving cars. Yet I have more problems with bad software decisions from Google than I do from Apple.
MBCook 12y ago
Could this be a form of concept car for Apple to test hardware/software on without any real intention of making their own car? Maybe it's a demonstration platform to show partners what a well integrated system could feel like. Perhaps Apple wants to make the guts of the car control/infotainment system instead of just projecting an image over the OEM system. Early reports on CarPlay from various vendors said that they varied widely in hardware speed/quality (I believe Ferrari's was said to be pretty bad). Apple doesn't like relying on third parties for their user experience (see: Moto ROKR).
- es09 12y ago
  This doesn't square with the report that says they are looking at manufacturing processes and materials. I agree with you though that this is the most likely explanation.
leereeves 12y ago
Possible downside: Apple could end up bidding against Tesla for employees, factories, and rare materials; increasing the price of electric cars and slowing Tesla's production and growth, while not producing many cars itself for some time.
- TulliusCicero 12y ago
  Musk mentioned the other day that Apple frequently tries to poach Tesla employees, but hasn't been very successful.
  - dhagz 12y ago
    Yeah, isn't it the other way around? I remember reading somewhere that Tesla poaches a good number of employees from Apple.
    - danfinlay 12y ago
      No, these are compatible statements. They both try to poach, and Tesla can be having more luck at it.
      - dba7dba 12y ago
        Why join a company where you have to work on fake projects for sometime before you are allowed to work on a real project, when you can join a company where such waste of time is not happening?
- droopyEyelids 12y ago
  When multiple companies compete for market share and consumer interest, prices typically drop.
Keyframe 12y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5 part deux! :)
mcmancini 12y ago
I find it more believable that these Apple car rumors are actually test mules for their CarPlay system and future extensions.
- etrautmann 12y ago
  That's unlikely given the hires that they've been making. I know of a number of engineers working on drivetrains, motor controllers, etc. who've been hired into that group.
  - mcmancini 12y ago
    Doesn't mean that they're building a car; maybe they're building OBD3 for electric cars and need people with domain knowledge. With Apple's NDAs and general secrecy policies, it's not like your colleagues would be able to even hint at what they're working on at Apple.
bsurmanski 12y ago
If anything comes out of this, maybe electric cars will be seen as cool now that Apple is in on the market. Although I am not a fan of Apple itself and likely wont get an iCar, I hope this isn't a rumor.
- kemiller 12y ago
  I think Tesla has already done a great job of making electric cars cool. They've gone from being dismissed as golf carts for kooks and granola-eaters to being derided as overpowered playthings for the rich. That's a huge change!
vermontdevil 12y ago
Might explain Musk weird press conference earlier this week. Said he would need massive amounts of cash soon. Maybe he knew what's going on with Apple. Or just that he needs money for the battery factory.
- imaginenore 12y ago
  It's probably a signal to Google.
- kemiller 12y ago
  He was asked in an interview not too long ago if he'd recommend to Apple that they get into the car business, and he said, "Yes, they should!" Odd response if he's expecting competition. I think an acquisition is much more likely, and it would also fall under the explanation of "we need a ton of money". I.e. we agreed to get bought by Apple because of their massive cash engine and operational expertise. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/b/1df875df-fb0c-4020-bec7-e1f36cf299e3 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/b/1df875df-fb0c-4020-be...
  - maged 12y ago
    Apple has ~200 billion in cash. Tesla's market cap is 25 billion. It definitely could be.
  - loceng 12y ago
    He wants competition because he's positioning himself/Tesla to be a major supplier and as a platform for EVs to use.
- microbial 12y ago
  Do you have a link?
  - vermontdevil 12y ago
    http://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2015/02/12/tesla-earnings-model-china-shipments-delayed-loss/23283493/ http://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2015/02/12/tesla-earni...
prawn 12y ago
I think eventually minivans will be a quite popular format for autonomous vehicles. Full size buses are inconvenient for suburban streets, while vehicles for single occupants may be priced out in on-demand situations for many trips. Already, minivans are very popular in unofficial public transport systems in many less-developed countries. In Morocco, grand taxis are old Mercedes sedans that leave when full - they're cramped and reckless, and I bet minivans would be preferred if they were more readily available. I think we'll see many people commuting in the near future by shared transport decided by efficiency algorithms and based on demand and prediction. Minivans could get 5-10 people into the CBD quite effectively in peak hour rather than the 1-2 people/car we see now, and without waiting for a bus or walking 3-5 blocks to the stop. A minivan with swappable internal components could easy convert to sleep four people (a family on a roadtrip), or have bench seats facing a card table (like a train), or have four reclining seats (like a plane, watching movies on VR headseats).
- acgourley 12y ago
  I like your point about in-car leisure. As autonomous driving unlocks it in a new way, I would expect our for forays into autonomous vehicles to attempt to highlight the luxury of this. It certainly seems more appealing than tightly gripping the arm rests while you observe how the robot is doing. I would add that interchangeable parts are probably not going to be a focus. The auto industries are pretty efficient at managing large supply chains to service several different models. If convergence was economically important it would happen more often.
  - prawn 12y ago
    More so a convertible interior than interchangeable parts. As with how RVs convert dining areas to beds, or how an SUV's rear seats fold down to provide more cargo space. I think a comfortable, self-driving car would be a quite pleasant alternative to flying in many cases, especially if you're likely to be hiring a car at the other end anyway and have a good amount of gear to stow on a trip.
- pkulak 12y ago
  I think a lot of it too is room for batteries. When you make an EV sedan you've got to either use a T battery, or use the entire width and breadth of the bottom 4 inches of the floor. But, a minivan or SUV/CUV? Those things ride high as a preference. I bet you could put a full foot high of batteries under that design and no one would even notice a change. Look at the Outlander PHEV, for example. It's got 12 kWh of low-density batteries in the floor and they didn't have to compromise interior space at all. I've always wondered why those things weren't the first vehicles to get electrified.
Norante 12y ago
Apple, I think, has seen the incoming wave of transformation for the transport industry and decided it would be worth getting prepared for it. The upcoming increase in automation on both passenger and commercial cars will open up new perspectives on what's valuable on a car. When you longer can appeal to a consumer about the pleasure or ease of driving, what else is there? Comfort, security, style and design. If Apple already has a good grasp on how many people create, manage and consume information and media, if they are making a move to shine new light on fitness and health, and on managing a smarter home, the missing link would be transportation.
r00fus 12y ago
On one hand, Apple is clearly not in their wheelhouse when it comes to vehicles - even Google has more experience than them. On the other hand, I would kill for an electric (or even hybrid) minivan. The Model-S with 2 extra seats just isn't enough room. On the gripping hand, look at how Apple played the industry and pundits on sapphire. Where is WSJ getting their info - they didn't even describe their sources.
- caryhartline 12y ago
  Google has that experience because of their own research. There's nothing to say that any other company of large enough size can't do research of their own. This is especially important to consider when you think about the level of secrecy Apple has when starting an internal project. Despite all of that, it's super unlikely Apple would make a car. It's just too weird.
  - dougabug 12y ago
    Google bought Thrun's self driving car startup, well after he led the team which won the DARPA Grand Challenge with Stanley; and subsequently acquired additional startups with autonomous vehicle technology. Apple purchased chip design firms to bootstrap its integrated chip capabilities, quite successfully. They've demonstrated the ability to assimilate outside technology.
- adventured 12y ago
  How did Apple play the industry on sapphire? They attempted it, put up hundreds of millions of dollars, and failed at attempting to bring a sapphire screen to market, which included bankrupting the manufacturer in the process.
- kryptiskt 12y ago
  Did Apple play anybody on sapphire (except for the supplier)? The press rumors were mostly true in hindsight, Apple had big sapphire plans (and there's real estate to prove it), it just didn't work out.
  - 12y ago
gear54rus 12y ago
As negative as it may sound, there's really no need to extend their closed ecosystem once again into something that only began to grow (electric vehicles). I hope this scattering approach will be their ultimate demise. What I like about Musk an his company is that he's not evil (yet?) and so for now the private space industry and electric vehicles are looking really nice.
cgusto 12y ago
Wow, this rumor is out of control. I guarantee they are not working on a complete vehicle. Probably battery systems and some type of autonomous control, if anything. I think this is just a moonshot program to attract engineering talent.
- leereeves 12y ago
  That's what I thought at first too, but as I thought about it, I began to wonder. They certainly have the chutzpah to try, and they have an ocean of money to spend overseas. A longshot bet on building another trillion dollar product might be preferable to paying corporate and personal income tax on dividends.
  - aerovistae 12y ago
    No, I totally agree with cgusto. Building a vehicle manufacturing base is a mammoth undertaking. Tesla's been at it for 12 years and is only now putting out 35,000 cars a year. It really doesn't make that much difference how much money you start off with; that was never Tesla's obstacle. Elon has said as much on more than one occasion, that they're spending money as fast as they can and the only real limit is the amount of work that can feasibly be done per unit time. Apple may have almost $200 billion but where would they get the batteries, to focus on just one aspect of it? Tesla found there literally wasn't enough battery supply and decided to build the largest battery factory in the world from scratch to provide what they needed, and it's been in planning for years and won't be ready for a few years to come. And again, money isn't the blocking issue. It would be laughable to suggest that Apple could just conjure up a comparable factory out of nowhere....it would take them just as long. And given their penchant for overseas labor, it would take even longer. Don't even get me started on that. It's like Elon has said: importing phones in bulk is one thing; importing cars or large heavy things is wholly another. They would really have to do it in the US, which could hardly be done in secrecy. Car manufacturing plants tend to be large and obvious. My point: maybe they'll get into it, but it won't come out of nowhere and it will certainly take a LOT of time regardless of their bank account. Tesla will be many years ahead of them for the long-term foreseeable future.
kpierce 12y ago
https://www.google.com/search?q=c...www.wsj.com/articles/apples-titan-car-project-to-challenge-tesla-1423868072#q=www.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fapples-titan-car-project-to-challenge-tesla-1423868072 https://www.google.com/search?q=c...www.wsj.com/articles/app... Click on the google news result to get past the paywall.
- anarchitect 12y ago
  Thanks for this. I went to the trouble of registering an account but kept being sent in a circular route back to the homepage.
niels_olson 12y ago
Available via Nasdaq http://www.nasdaq.com/article/apple-is-gearing-up-to-challenge-electriccar-maker-tesla-20150213-00712 http://www.nasdaq.com/article/apple-is-gearing-up-to-challen...
brianbreslin 12y ago
I think we need to think of this strategically. Apple isn't going to want to build an equivalent substitute for a run of the mill car. They have the cash on hand to burn a billion trying this, and write it off as a line item on r&d and the investors wouldn't flinch.
mrmondo 12y ago
While I praise more competition in the ecar market - I do wish Apple would return to concentrating on build quality, stability and performance optimising OSX - 10.10 has been a nightmare and if it isn't fixed soon or if 10.11 is a repeat they'll lose their reputation for building high quality, stable products. I do worry slightly that they may be trying to do too many things.
- ido 12y ago
  Apple currently has about 100,000 employees. They can improve OS X while also coming out with new products.
  - therockhead 12y ago
    Exactly, only so many developers can work on OS X.
yanose 12y ago
In the 1910's Ford revolutionized operations management and it dominated the automotive industry. In the 1960's Toyota revolutionized operations management and it dominated the automotive industry. In the 2010's Apple revolutionized operations management and ...
- fiatjaf 12y ago
  Toyota never dominated anything.
  - troymc 12y ago
    "Toyota was the largest automobile manufacturer in 2012 (by production) ahead of the Volkswagen Group and General Motors." [1] For example… "Introduced in 1966, the [Toyota] Corolla managed to become the best-selling car worldwide by 1974 and has been one of the best-selling cars in the world since then." [2] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Corolla http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Corolla
    - fiatjaf 12y ago
      These facts do not imply that Toyota dominated the industry. Some car always must be the best-selling, right?
  - funcSoulBrother 12y ago
    You clearly don't know your automotive industry history.
- kriro 12y ago
  Apple has done many great things but revolutionizing operations management isn't something I'd put on the list. How is their OM different from other software companies or electronics product companies? Their association with Foxconn comes to mind which I wouldn't exactly call revolutionary.
  - 12y ago
bronz 12y ago
OK, I have done a little Googling. The evidence boils down to only a few verifiable facts. In the Bay Area, a van registered to apple was spotted. The van was mounted with hardware that is unmistakably designed for car automation, namely spinning cameras at the front and rear. It is basically conclusive that the car is a self driving prototype and not something for apple maps. There is video of that van linked below. This is not conclusive evidence that Apple has intentions to enter the EV market, though. Recently, Apple has hired people from the automotive industry, including some from Tesla (Articles that state this as fact cite linkedin, so I am assuming it is true). Basically, based on the qualifications and expertise of these hires, it can be concluded that Apple is not assigning them to work on CarPlay, which is the only known alternative. (I have not verified this myself but feel that it is OK to accept as true for the time being). As far as I could tell everything else out there is speculation or not verifiable. There are various instances of bloggers and reporters claiming that they have gotten word from Apple employees that Apple is exploring the possibility of entering the EV market. These employees have all remained anonymous and there is no evidence that their claims are genuine or accurate. My own conclusion is that there is a strong possibility that Apple is attempting to enter the EV market in some way. Let us ignore the evidence that has come to the surface as of late. The EV market has a lot of growth left and a lot of unclaimed territory. Apple has a lot of cash sitting around, a relative familiarity with power electronics and most importantly a very strong leader, Tim Cook. Apple is large and old but it does not appear to be fragmented and it is, IMHO, still capable of pouncing on new opportunities and markets. The means, motive, and opportunity all seem to exist in the case of Apple and EVs. And bringing the recent observations back into the equation only appears to strengthen the hypothesis. video of van: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lhU54nhyyk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lhU54nhyyk http://www.macrumors.com/2015/02/04/mysterious-apple-car/ http://www.macrumors.com/2015/02/04/mysterious-apple-car/ http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple-is-working-on-a-car http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple-is-working-on-a... http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-employee-well-give-tesla-a-run-for-its-money-2015-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-employee-well-give-tesl... http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-more-evidence-that-apple-could-be-working-on-a-car-2015-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-more-evidence-that-appl... http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-testing-street-view-competitor-2015-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-testing-street-view-com...
phkahler 12y ago
A couple months ago I was contacted by a recruiter from Apple on LinkedIn. He claimed my skillset was a great match for some new thing they were doing but wouldn't explain. I thought WTH, I'd been doing EVs for the last 6 years and non-EVs for longer than that. Maybe they need to get some official vague news out so they can actually hire the people they need?
- fiatjaf 12y ago
  What's an EV? How do you know they don't want an EV specialist?
  - chm 12y ago
    Electric vehicle? If I was an engineer in the automobile industry, I'd be surprised to be contacted by Apple too.
- stinos 12y ago
  Similar story here; they weren't recruiting but showed lots of interest in a certain device an eventually bought the thing, while we have no idea what on earth they are planning to do with it and they of course wouldn't tell. So it seems that behind closed doors they are reseraching a lot of different areas, trying to figure out which one to explore/exploit. That sounds logical, Microsoft/Google/... do the same, but funnily enough I never looked at Apple that way - I always only saw the shiny end products. Must be their marketing.
melling 12y ago
I tried to make this point a couple of weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8962872 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8962872 Basically, Apple, Google, and Microsoft have so much money, they could take on a huge problem and "invent" the future.
- ams6110 12y ago
  1997-2000 showed us that having a lot of money is no guarantee you'll build something that anyone wants to use (or at least, that they want to pay for).
  - melling 12y ago
    Who said anything about any guarantees? Hopefully, we're all a little smarter and if all three companies each tried a few moonshots, we'd get a few really big advances.
- Jyaif 12y ago
  Google X as been doing exactly that for a while now.
ullrich 12y ago
Finally I'll be able to call my car from my watch!
pj_mukh 12y ago
Also, given their hiring practices which include aggressive recruiting of people in autonomous vehicles, this car, or later versions of it is going to have significant autonomy. I say this would be a GREAT step for Apple.
beloch 12y ago
Apple hardware is generally beautiful and feels extremely well built, but usually makes a few key compromises of function for the sake of form, with the result that some of their gear is prone to failure after a surprisingly short period of time. Take pretty much every Apple cable ever made for example. They lack stress relief and, hence, tend to fall apart where they are stressed. Some of this can be blamed on Steve Jobs. Reportedly, it was Jobs who hated the look of stress relieved cables so much that he prevented Apple from adopting sensible cable designs. Hopefully Cook is less dogmatic in pursuing form over function. Even so, I'd be wary of a buying a new car from a first-time auto manufacturer, especially one with Apple's track record of compromised function. I'd be afraid that Apple, in trying to set their car apart from the competition, would build a car that is either unsafe or doomed to early failure. I'm sure people will line up to buy the iCar just like every other iProduct, but it may well prove sensible not to be amongst the first!
- Hytosys 12y ago
  I respect this sentiment and am not completely dismissing the analogy, but there are certainly more safety regulations and checks on cars than on low-voltage DC power cables.
  - beloch 12y ago
    To flip that around, it's a lot easier to F up an automobile than a simple conductor!
- Avitas 12y ago
  ...be wary. Hell yes. This is a product that, with a hidden bug or quirk, will kill, maim or hurt you and others around you. On the other hand, Apple has the capital to do this correctly. Even if they later decide to limit the scope of the project, it will pay dividends with their existing automotive control group. A project like this will take many years. But, with their best project managers, there's no doubt that they can do it. Who knows, with the kind of money they have now, I'd say even 5 years is doable. But, be mindful that the existing existing players such as BMW, Ford, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes, Nissan, Tesla, Toyota and VW are all getting better too. Electric cars aren't rocket science, but with all the regulations and bureaucratic red tape surrounding the automotive industry, it may as well be. Here's another kicker--Apple may be thinking about integrating some new thing(s) that are novel. It could be that Apple engineers have thought of some great way to combine X (and Y...) in some novel way with the automobile that will revolutionize the industry. If that's the case, you can expect even greater and more fanatical secrecy than the existing wall of silence. Here's the nice thing about a project like this as I see it. Cars are fun. They're sexy and lots of kids dream about driving, building, fixing and/or designing them. This is the type of thing that gets the public eye and can rally existing employees and potential employees. Who wouldn't want to work on a car? Lastly, just like the moonshot project of the 60's, you never know what technologies and ancillary benefits will come about because of something as complex and far-reaching as this appears to be.
hmate9 12y ago
I'm excited to see Elon Musk vs Apple. grabs popcorn
- closetnerd 12y ago
  I would have loved to see Elon Musk vs. Steve Jobs. Personalities are quite contrasting.
  - godzillabrennus 12y ago
    Steve Jobs up ended multiple industries. Musk is no small player but Jobs basically reinvented the way the game was played when he entered an industry. Musk wouldn't have had a chance.
    - closetnerd 12y ago
      I'm inclined to believe you.
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      Sure, Musk is so limited. Let's see: Rockets, Cars, Payment systems.
      - closetnerd 12y ago
        It hasn't yet had the same impact that Apple has though.
jusben1369 12y ago
Cars are going to dictate what technology silo you end up joining. The car that works the best as a communicationpod/office will win the next major consumer battle just as Apple won the smart phone war. This is about Google not Tesla.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- pmontra 12y ago
  There is a trend of not owning a car, at least in Europe, thanks to companies like car2go, moovel and many others. Uber too. Autonomous cars will further the trend. Cars are going to become a B2B product, not exactly Apple's playground. But this is in the long run so it could not matter even strategically. About winning the smartphone war, if Apple won it, that was the war for cash. Android won the war for usage, same way IE won the browser wars. I wonder what's the margin on a car. If you have to make low margin products to keep selling high margin ones you end up low margin overall. So, if Apple goes for $50+k cars, it will still be a high margin business but even more biased towards the richest consumers. If it goes for 10k cars, that will be a big change in strategy.
  - jusben1369 12y ago
    I'm not too worried about ownership structure. Just usage (which isn't going away)
visarga 12y ago
No log in. It was nice while it lasted, for 1-2 phrases though.
- stingrae 12y ago
  search for the article title on google and you'll get a free link to view it, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCEQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fapples-titan-car-project-to-challenge-tesla-1423868072&ei=eObeVJOPE9PYoAT-gYGQBg&usg=AFQjCNFSnuEADDX0xPbswEMF-f9lqscQYw&sig2=l_-ODqRYaJ-po21Kw0Geaw&bvm=bv.85970519,d.cGU https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...
archagon 12y ago
I'm a little miffed that people don't express more skepticism about self-driving cars on tech sites. Given what I know about AI research and the technical limitations of LIDAR etc., I find it unlikely that fully self-driving cars will be available at any scale in our lifetimes — if at all. I wish people wouldn't talk about them like they're already de facto the future of transport. I think if Apple is working on a car, it's going to be a mass-consumer competitor to Tesla, not anything to do with self-driving.
- funcSoulBrother 12y ago
  Could you elaborate on this? What do you know about AI research and technical limitations of various components that leads you to be skeptical of the realization of autonomous vehicles? I'm with you on predicting that if Apple is getting into it, it will be non-autonomous, but I'm curious as to how you have reached your other incredulous conclusion.
  - archagon 12y ago
    My skepticism has to do with the following: * People talk about how automatic cars have been extensively tested. That's not really true. There's only a handful of them on the roads and they've been tested in limited conditions, with particular limits placed on suburban driving (slow speeds, etc.). I suspect there will be entirely new classes of bugs when there are hundreds of different AIs competing on the road, especially when mixed with normal human traffic. * LIDAR does not work in poor weather conditions, including ice on the road. * In terms of AI, getting to the 90% point is relatively easy, but it seems like the last 10% would require something resembling true intelligence. How do you deal with a lack of markers on the road? Dangerous situations in shady areas? Sensor equipment getting damaged and feeding your car wrong information? Animals and children running out last-second into the road? Severe obstacles at a distance? Tiny, cramped residential roads with non-sidewalk pedestrian traffic? Accommodating emergency vehicles and police? We shut off our brains when driving 90% of the time, but that last 10% does require human levels of intelligence. Furthermore, unless every car on the road is automated, the AI in automatic cars will need to deal with the idiosyncrasies of other human drivers. Sudden merges. Speeding. Road rage. Unexpected emergencies. Tailgating. An AI can't send and receive feedback to other human drivers and pedestrians; it can only use its model of human behavior to predict likely outcomes. (And this is saying nothing of other AIs on the road, who might behave completely unlike human drivers.) * People say that automated cars only need to drive better than human drivers, not perfectly. I don't know if that's true. If automated cars drove perfectly 99.9999% of the time but then crashed horribly that remaining 0.0001% — taking some poor pedestrians or bicyclists along with them — I wouldn't get into one. And I don't think they'd be street-legal. Most people don't want to think about human lives in terms of numbers; they'd rather have control over their actions and accept the inevitability of occasional accidents, rather than having a machine that's practically guaranteed to eat up human lives every so often. * Speaking of which, how does the car decide who gets to live in a life-or-death situation? Are there situations where the car would elect to kill the driver? Which programmer gets to make that decision? I'd like to know this information before getting into my car, please. The idea of offloading split-second moral decisions to an AI seems like it should be severely legislated. * People talk about mesh networking improving traffic and whatnot. I can't even get my USB devices to work across OSes half the time, and we're talking about sophisticated traffic control across multiple manufacturers? Especially given the quality of software that car companies tend to put out? * Self-driving technology is extremely expensive, and most cars on the road are pretty cheap. You'd have to have some sort of insane subsidy program to get more than the 1% driving automated cars. * People want to get in their self-driving cars drunk, but I think there will be severe legal hurdles in the way of that. I think semi-automated and AI-augmented driving are certainly possible. Highways are easy enough to tackle. I could see some expensive cars getting that capability over the next few decades, as well as maybe cargo trucks. But endpoint to endpoint driving, where you could snooze on your way to work? I don't think so.
nemothekid 12y ago
With $200B in cash, I'd be surprised if Apple "X" wasn't also producing rocketships and quantum computers - all the while being very quiet about it.
chvid 12y ago
What if Volkswagen decided they wanted to do smart phones? And had recruiters call random people at Google, Samsung and Apple ... I cannot quite get my head around this - Apple is an excellent engineering, sales and design company with gigantic wealth - but the leap from computers and phones into automobile is very big. They have little in common wrt. sales, technology and support. Why would this work out? And does noone question the sanity of it?
- agumonkey 12y ago
  I guess the complexity of a an EV is a lot smaller and they bet on being able to manage the rest fast enough with a good HR attack.
- etrautmann 12y ago
  They have several key advantages that apply to this space: 1) unparalleled industrial design credibility, 2) a limitless money hose. If they decide to do this, they do have the ability to make the hires they need to give it an honest shot.
skc 12y ago
Apple's playbook is seems very clear to me. Fashionable utility. They get this better than anyone. Cars would seem like such a logical next step in that regard.
larssorenson 12y ago
I dislike Apple, their products and their "you're unique just like everyone else" mentality but i honestly want them to make this move and do it well. They might make an over priced, marginally better EV but more importantly they will drive interest in the technology and the products, leading to faster and greater adoption as well as serious industry commitment which will push for research and development and massive improvements in the industry. Just like they did with mobile phones. I love Tesla but they're the Palm pilot or BlackBerry of EV. Trend setters who will maybe get overshot.
matdrewin 12y ago
A "minivan-like" vehicule? I sure hope this is just a red herring Apple threw at the media to have them trip on their shoelaces.

124 points by tysone 12y ago

bcolb 12y ago

Reading the title I thought to myself "Why not just link the WSJ article then?" Answer: Paywall

Dotnaught 12y ago
Enter WSJ headline into Google News search box. The corresponding link bypasses the paywall.
- bcolb 12y ago
  Right you are! Here's the link for anyone interested: http://www.wsj.com/articles/apples-titan-car-project-to-challenge-tesla-1423868072 http://www.wsj.com/articles/apples-titan-car-project-to-chal...
  - delecti 12y ago
    It would seem the link only works if the referral is from google.
  - notatoad 12y ago
    this one should work. https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fapples-titan-car-project-to-challenge-tesla-1423868072&ei=_JveVIeAMcq0oQSJxYKQBA&usg=AFQjCNFSnuEADDX0xPbswEMF-f9lqscQYw&sig2=8JYgfDH-b2Ivq03pWZMKdg&bvm=bv.85970519,d.cGU https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd...

calvintennant 12y ago

"Apple would be looking to make such an enormous leap from its core competency — building great consumer electronics". Don't electric cars fall into the category of consumer electronics?

delecti 12y ago
I agree that they phrase it oddly, but I would argue that cars are a product category with more user expectations about the particulars of functionality, and is thus less open to apple's typical refinements.
TrainedMonkey 12y ago
My first thought as well, if anything I can think of two reasons why Apple would be building their own car: 1. Compete in luxury electric automotive market. Motivation is there, but I find it dubious that Apple will go for it. On the other had Apple does have everything they need to become strong player in this field (engineers, cash, supply chain, strong U.S. lobbying presence, and army of lawyers) 2. Get competence on how to build cars in order to be able to rapidly prototype integration of Apple products with car entertainment systems. Possibly design said entertainment systems for car manufacturers, or at least influence the design to give apple products an edge.
pbreit 12y ago
No.
- Alterlife 12y ago
  No? Could you explain? Did the old film cameras fall under consumer electronics? I don't think so. What about analog telephones from the 90's? What about overhead projectors and phonograph players (I hope that's what they were called)? Those devices have changed. I have to imagine the umbrella of 'consumer electronics' is constantly expanding. In the long term, why would cars be any different?
  - agumonkey 12y ago
    A car is still in a different device category. It has to be a lot more dependable and secure then a phone, with deeper social implications (life critical). Jobs managed to slip the antennagate under the rug, you can't do that with cars. IMHO this is not the kind of knowledge you can imprint in a company in a few years safely.

trhway 12y ago

DMCA - the law to protect platforms - has very interesting implication of silo-ization of the tech. Any tech, like in "tech"nology civilization. Marching into the brave new world of silos, a car is an easy addition to Apple platform, while GM would need to build a platform to add to their cars.

orbifold 12y ago
I think you are deluding yourself, if you believe that an average person would choose their car based on the entertainment system.
- ndespres 12y ago
  I'm sure many would. In modern cars where nearly everything is computer-controlled and un-serviceable by the end user, safety is pretty much guaranteed, and fuel economy is average.. what other choices are there? It's just as plausible that someone would choose a car based on built-in entertainment options as that they'd do so based on color scheme.
- trhway 12y ago
  >I think you are deluding yourself, if you believe that an average person would choose their car based on the entertainment system. who said entertainment system? Design is among, if not the, main aspects when people decide on tech choice. With cars being electric - simple commoditized drivetrain - design will become even more important.
  - orbifold 12y ago
    I'm pretty sure design wise the entertainment system would be the only thing they could beat the designers of Porsche, Mercedes etc. at, I have less doubt that they might be able to kill off some of the American car manufacturers.
    - trhway 12y ago
      >the only thing they could beat the designers of Porsche, Mercedes etc. i think electric cars for some segment like "Millenial urbanites" would be a market where Porsche and Mercedes don't have any starting advantage in car design over Apple as all their established design themes of high power/dynamics, masculinity, posh-ness, etc... wouldn't resonate that much there.

pasta_2 12y ago

Nice of Elon Musk to open source Tesla's patents, will make things easier for Apple.

click170 12y ago
Who would you rather buy from though? The innovator, or the imitator? Price may be the differentiating factor, but I think most ppl would choose the innovator.
- delecti 12y ago
  I think Apple has a big enough name that them being the "imitator" won't scare anybody off. I also think that Apple is a bigger household name than Tesla.
- alex8022 12y ago
  Most people don't decide which product to buy based on who was first. If a competitor produces a quality alternative, they will compare the two and buy the one they like more (Where the product they like more is subjective and base on many factors).
- Cookingboy 12y ago
  People buy from whoever makes the best product at the best price. Regular consumers can careless about who had the original idea, they only care about who executed best.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > People buy from whoever makes the best product at the best price. People buy from whoever does the best marketing (that is, whoever makes them feel like they are getting the best product for them.) > Regular consumers can careless about who had the original idea (Nitpick: "careless" is not the same thing "care less") Regular consumers probably do care about originality, which is why being "the original X" often plays a key role in marketing, in products in a wide array of different markets. If it wasn't something consumers tended to care about, it wouldn't likely be a perennial marketing point. It is, of course, not the only thing consumers care about, obviously. > they only care about who executed best Arguably, they don't care directly about who executed best, they care about who they trust to execute best for them. Evidence about having executed well to others, like being the original in a category, may be indicators by which consumers judge that likelihood.

orand 12y ago

At first I thought this was crazy. Then I realized it's all about extending Apple's ecosystem of hardware + software + services. Better together. Plus, they make their profits off hardware.

orand 12y ago
Wow, two downvotes in ten minutes! I'm honestly at a loss as to why. If anyone could clue me in, I'd be grateful. Thanks. Edit: very funny, you mysterious downvoters. Now the downvotes are on _this_ comment, and the original one has been upvoted 4 times. And I still haven't learned how/why I should change my behavior in the future. The only thing I've learned is that up/down voting seems to be random.
- ohquu 12y ago
  Stop caring so much.
  - orand 12y ago
    I don't care. And I'm not offended or upset in the slightest. I'm simply curious. And mildly amused.
    - bsdetector 12y ago
      Karma actually has a real value on HN because it prevents some people from downvoting. If an Google fan keeps an Apple fan below the karma threshold then the Apple fan won't be able to shape future discussions. The system encourages people to downvote even reasonable comments that are from the "other team". You ran into somebody like that.
      - orand 12y ago
        Ah, interesting! Thanks for sharing. I thought my comment was fairly ambiguous as to which "team" I'm on (I develop for both iOS and Android), but I guess when it comes to these kinds of polarizing politics, if someone doesn't immediately identify with your viewpoint, you must be from the "other team".

pokstad 12y ago

Very interesting, but what is Wall Street Journal's success rate with Apple rumors? I know it's higher than most, but that was probably due to Walt Mossberg (who has left WSJ in recent times).

culturestate 12y ago
The Journal is traditionally Apple's outlet of choice when they want to leak something, but they've been a little bit hit-and-miss lately. Maybe something's changed since Katie Cotton left.

3327 12y ago

I would say apple has no domain expertise and they should focus on what they focus on. This is positive news for the "future" no matter how it is seen. It might very well be the largest mistake Apple has ever done and seal its demise or the smartest move and they will be a global dominant company even more so than today...

api 12y ago
Apple has more than enough money to try 50 experiments like this.
- prawn 12y ago
  Or even just five large-scale projects. Surely one would be a TV. Smart TVs right now are woeful, and just providing a weak set-top box on the side might provide something at an accessible price point, but it doesn't solve the real problem. An ideal smart TV would pre-fetch EPGs to load and switch quickly, have an optional social layer over the video feed (like what Xbox One proposed), and more naturally fit in with other hardware and ways of getting media to the screen.
  - Cthulhu_ 12y ago
    And not, you know, have always-on voice recognition and a camera and stuff. Or advertising.
- larrys 12y ago
  And enough money to buy an existing car company and/or joint venture.
hmottestad 12y ago
The only domain expertise they had on phones was the itunes phone with motorola. And then they launched the iphone. Same goes for the ipod. Only thing they had expertise in was computers. And with computers becoming extremely important for cars, they might just have a chance. Just as much as google, and they don't have any particular domain knowledge either (ie. they have never sold a car before).

Geee 12y ago

It's probably 10 years off, but I bet it will be a self-driving one. That isn't a car anymore, but a moving computer, which makes it a natural fit for Apple.

prostoalex 12y ago
From WSJ: "A self-driving car is not part of Apple’s current plan, one of the people familiar with the project said."
- michas 12y ago
  "Never believe anything until it has been officially denied."
foobarian 12y ago
I'm skeptical. Self-driving systems are extremely software heavy, and Apple is not a software house. It just doesn't make sense.
- snowwrestler 12y ago
  Apple is not a software house? They produce two OS's with development tooling and applications, they run some of the largest online services on the Internet, and they just released their own new programming language. What would a software house look like?
  - ams6110 12y ago
    Software for a self-driving car has to be built to a standard that's entirely different from anything they've had to build to before. Lives are at stake.
    - epistasis 12y ago
      Based on my experience with desktop software, I'd take the Apple software over pretty much any other vendor every day of the week. Funnily enough, nobody seems to question Google's chops when it comes to making self driving cars. Yet I have more problems with bad software decisions from Google than I do from Apple.

MBCook 12y ago

Could this be a form of concept car for Apple to test hardware/software on without any real intention of making their own car? Maybe it's a demonstration platform to show partners what a well integrated system could feel like. Perhaps Apple wants to make the guts of the car control/infotainment system instead of just projecting an image over the OEM system. Early reports on CarPlay from various vendors said that they varied widely in hardware speed/quality (I believe Ferrari's was said to be pretty bad). Apple doesn't like relying on third parties for their user experience (see: Moto ROKR).

es09 12y ago
This doesn't square with the report that says they are looking at manufacturing processes and materials. I agree with you though that this is the most likely explanation.

leereeves 12y ago

Possible downside: Apple could end up bidding against Tesla for employees, factories, and rare materials; increasing the price of electric cars and slowing Tesla's production and growth, while not producing many cars itself for some time.

TulliusCicero 12y ago
Musk mentioned the other day that Apple frequently tries to poach Tesla employees, but hasn't been very successful.
- dhagz 12y ago
  Yeah, isn't it the other way around? I remember reading somewhere that Tesla poaches a good number of employees from Apple.
  - danfinlay 12y ago
    No, these are compatible statements. They both try to poach, and Tesla can be having more luck at it.
    - dba7dba 12y ago
      Why join a company where you have to work on fake projects for sometime before you are allowed to work on a real project, when you can join a company where such waste of time is not happening?
droopyEyelids 12y ago
When multiple companies compete for market share and consumer interest, prices typically drop.

Keyframe 12y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5 part deux! :)

mcmancini 12y ago

I find it more believable that these Apple car rumors are actually test mules for their CarPlay system and future extensions.

etrautmann 12y ago
That's unlikely given the hires that they've been making. I know of a number of engineers working on drivetrains, motor controllers, etc. who've been hired into that group.
- mcmancini 12y ago
  Doesn't mean that they're building a car; maybe they're building OBD3 for electric cars and need people with domain knowledge. With Apple's NDAs and general secrecy policies, it's not like your colleagues would be able to even hint at what they're working on at Apple.

bsurmanski 12y ago

If anything comes out of this, maybe electric cars will be seen as cool now that Apple is in on the market. Although I am not a fan of Apple itself and likely wont get an iCar, I hope this isn't a rumor.

kemiller 12y ago
I think Tesla has already done a great job of making electric cars cool. They've gone from being dismissed as golf carts for kooks and granola-eaters to being derided as overpowered playthings for the rich. That's a huge change!

vermontdevil 12y ago

Might explain Musk weird press conference earlier this week. Said he would need massive amounts of cash soon. Maybe he knew what's going on with Apple. Or just that he needs money for the battery factory.

imaginenore 12y ago
It's probably a signal to Google.
kemiller 12y ago
He was asked in an interview not too long ago if he'd recommend to Apple that they get into the car business, and he said, "Yes, they should!" Odd response if he's expecting competition. I think an acquisition is much more likely, and it would also fall under the explanation of "we need a ton of money". I.e. we agreed to get bought by Apple because of their massive cash engine and operational expertise. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/b/1df875df-fb0c-4020-bec7-e1f36cf299e3 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/b/1df875df-fb0c-4020-be...
- maged 12y ago
  Apple has ~200 billion in cash. Tesla's market cap is 25 billion. It definitely could be.
- loceng 12y ago
  He wants competition because he's positioning himself/Tesla to be a major supplier and as a platform for EVs to use.
microbial 12y ago
Do you have a link?
- vermontdevil 12y ago
  http://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2015/02/12/tesla-earnings-model-china-shipments-delayed-loss/23283493/ http://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2015/02/12/tesla-earni...

prawn 12y ago

I think eventually minivans will be a quite popular format for autonomous vehicles. Full size buses are inconvenient for suburban streets, while vehicles for single occupants may be priced out in on-demand situations for many trips. Already, minivans are very popular in unofficial public transport systems in many less-developed countries. In Morocco, grand taxis are old Mercedes sedans that leave when full - they're cramped and reckless, and I bet minivans would be preferred if they were more readily available. I think we'll see many people commuting in the near future by shared transport decided by efficiency algorithms and based on demand and prediction. Minivans could get 5-10 people into the CBD quite effectively in peak hour rather than the 1-2 people/car we see now, and without waiting for a bus or walking 3-5 blocks to the stop. A minivan with swappable internal components could easy convert to sleep four people (a family on a roadtrip), or have bench seats facing a card table (like a train), or have four reclining seats (like a plane, watching movies on VR headseats).

acgourley 12y ago
I like your point about in-car leisure. As autonomous driving unlocks it in a new way, I would expect our for forays into autonomous vehicles to attempt to highlight the luxury of this. It certainly seems more appealing than tightly gripping the arm rests while you observe how the robot is doing. I would add that interchangeable parts are probably not going to be a focus. The auto industries are pretty efficient at managing large supply chains to service several different models. If convergence was economically important it would happen more often.
- prawn 12y ago
  More so a convertible interior than interchangeable parts. As with how RVs convert dining areas to beds, or how an SUV's rear seats fold down to provide more cargo space. I think a comfortable, self-driving car would be a quite pleasant alternative to flying in many cases, especially if you're likely to be hiring a car at the other end anyway and have a good amount of gear to stow on a trip.
pkulak 12y ago
I think a lot of it too is room for batteries. When you make an EV sedan you've got to either use a T battery, or use the entire width and breadth of the bottom 4 inches of the floor. But, a minivan or SUV/CUV? Those things ride high as a preference. I bet you could put a full foot high of batteries under that design and no one would even notice a change. Look at the Outlander PHEV, for example. It's got 12 kWh of low-density batteries in the floor and they didn't have to compromise interior space at all. I've always wondered why those things weren't the first vehicles to get electrified.

Norante 12y ago

Apple, I think, has seen the incoming wave of transformation for the transport industry and decided it would be worth getting prepared for it. The upcoming increase in automation on both passenger and commercial cars will open up new perspectives on what's valuable on a car. When you longer can appeal to a consumer about the pleasure or ease of driving, what else is there? Comfort, security, style and design. If Apple already has a good grasp on how many people create, manage and consume information and media, if they are making a move to shine new light on fitness and health, and on managing a smarter home, the missing link would be transportation.

r00fus 12y ago

On one hand, Apple is clearly not in their wheelhouse when it comes to vehicles - even Google has more experience than them. On the other hand, I would kill for an electric (or even hybrid) minivan. The Model-S with 2 extra seats just isn't enough room. On the gripping hand, look at how Apple played the industry and pundits on sapphire. Where is WSJ getting their info - they didn't even describe their sources.

caryhartline 12y ago
Google has that experience because of their own research. There's nothing to say that any other company of large enough size can't do research of their own. This is especially important to consider when you think about the level of secrecy Apple has when starting an internal project. Despite all of that, it's super unlikely Apple would make a car. It's just too weird.
- dougabug 12y ago
  Google bought Thrun's self driving car startup, well after he led the team which won the DARPA Grand Challenge with Stanley; and subsequently acquired additional startups with autonomous vehicle technology. Apple purchased chip design firms to bootstrap its integrated chip capabilities, quite successfully. They've demonstrated the ability to assimilate outside technology.
adventured 12y ago
How did Apple play the industry on sapphire? They attempted it, put up hundreds of millions of dollars, and failed at attempting to bring a sapphire screen to market, which included bankrupting the manufacturer in the process.
kryptiskt 12y ago
Did Apple play anybody on sapphire (except for the supplier)? The press rumors were mostly true in hindsight, Apple had big sapphire plans (and there's real estate to prove it), it just didn't work out.
- 12y ago

gear54rus 12y ago

As negative as it may sound, there's really no need to extend their closed ecosystem once again into something that only began to grow (electric vehicles). I hope this scattering approach will be their ultimate demise. What I like about Musk an his company is that he's not evil (yet?) and so for now the private space industry and electric vehicles are looking really nice.

cgusto 12y ago

Wow, this rumor is out of control. I guarantee they are not working on a complete vehicle. Probably battery systems and some type of autonomous control, if anything. I think this is just a moonshot program to attract engineering talent.

leereeves 12y ago
That's what I thought at first too, but as I thought about it, I began to wonder. They certainly have the chutzpah to try, and they have an ocean of money to spend overseas. A longshot bet on building another trillion dollar product might be preferable to paying corporate and personal income tax on dividends.
- aerovistae 12y ago
  No, I totally agree with cgusto. Building a vehicle manufacturing base is a mammoth undertaking. Tesla's been at it for 12 years and is only now putting out 35,000 cars a year. It really doesn't make that much difference how much money you start off with; that was never Tesla's obstacle. Elon has said as much on more than one occasion, that they're spending money as fast as they can and the only real limit is the amount of work that can feasibly be done per unit time. Apple may have almost $200 billion but where would they get the batteries, to focus on just one aspect of it? Tesla found there literally wasn't enough battery supply and decided to build the largest battery factory in the world from scratch to provide what they needed, and it's been in planning for years and won't be ready for a few years to come. And again, money isn't the blocking issue. It would be laughable to suggest that Apple could just conjure up a comparable factory out of nowhere....it would take them just as long. And given their penchant for overseas labor, it would take even longer. Don't even get me started on that. It's like Elon has said: importing phones in bulk is one thing; importing cars or large heavy things is wholly another. They would really have to do it in the US, which could hardly be done in secrecy. Car manufacturing plants tend to be large and obvious. My point: maybe they'll get into it, but it won't come out of nowhere and it will certainly take a LOT of time regardless of their bank account. Tesla will be many years ahead of them for the long-term foreseeable future.

kpierce 12y ago

https://www.google.com/search?q=c...www.wsj.com/articles/apples-titan-car-project-to-challenge-tesla-1423868072#q=www.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fapples-titan-car-project-to-challenge-tesla-1423868072 https://www.google.com/search?q=c...www.wsj.com/articles/app... Click on the google news result to get past the paywall.

anarchitect 12y ago
Thanks for this. I went to the trouble of registering an account but kept being sent in a circular route back to the homepage.

niels_olson 12y ago

Available via Nasdaq http://www.nasdaq.com/article/apple-is-gearing-up-to-challenge-electriccar-maker-tesla-20150213-00712 http://www.nasdaq.com/article/apple-is-gearing-up-to-challen...

brianbreslin 12y ago

I think we need to think of this strategically. Apple isn't going to want to build an equivalent substitute for a run of the mill car. They have the cash on hand to burn a billion trying this, and write it off as a line item on r&d and the investors wouldn't flinch.

mrmondo 12y ago

While I praise more competition in the ecar market - I do wish Apple would return to concentrating on build quality, stability and performance optimising OSX - 10.10 has been a nightmare and if it isn't fixed soon or if 10.11 is a repeat they'll lose their reputation for building high quality, stable products. I do worry slightly that they may be trying to do too many things.

ido 12y ago
Apple currently has about 100,000 employees. They can improve OS X while also coming out with new products.
- therockhead 12y ago
  Exactly, only so many developers can work on OS X.

yanose 12y ago

In the 1910's Ford revolutionized operations management and it dominated the automotive industry. In the 1960's Toyota revolutionized operations management and it dominated the automotive industry. In the 2010's Apple revolutionized operations management and ...

fiatjaf 12y ago
Toyota never dominated anything.
- troymc 12y ago
  "Toyota was the largest automobile manufacturer in 2012 (by production) ahead of the Volkswagen Group and General Motors." [1] For example… "Introduced in 1966, the [Toyota] Corolla managed to become the best-selling car worldwide by 1974 and has been one of the best-selling cars in the world since then." [2] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Corolla http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Corolla
  - fiatjaf 12y ago
    These facts do not imply that Toyota dominated the industry. Some car always must be the best-selling, right?
- funcSoulBrother 12y ago
  You clearly don't know your automotive industry history.
kriro 12y ago
Apple has done many great things but revolutionizing operations management isn't something I'd put on the list. How is their OM different from other software companies or electronics product companies? Their association with Foxconn comes to mind which I wouldn't exactly call revolutionary.
- 12y ago

bronz 12y ago

OK, I have done a little Googling. The evidence boils down to only a few verifiable facts. In the Bay Area, a van registered to apple was spotted. The van was mounted with hardware that is unmistakably designed for car automation, namely spinning cameras at the front and rear. It is basically conclusive that the car is a self driving prototype and not something for apple maps. There is video of that van linked below. This is not conclusive evidence that Apple has intentions to enter the EV market, though. Recently, Apple has hired people from the automotive industry, including some from Tesla (Articles that state this as fact cite linkedin, so I am assuming it is true). Basically, based on the qualifications and expertise of these hires, it can be concluded that Apple is not assigning them to work on CarPlay, which is the only known alternative. (I have not verified this myself but feel that it is OK to accept as true for the time being). As far as I could tell everything else out there is speculation or not verifiable. There are various instances of bloggers and reporters claiming that they have gotten word from Apple employees that Apple is exploring the possibility of entering the EV market. These employees have all remained anonymous and there is no evidence that their claims are genuine or accurate. My own conclusion is that there is a strong possibility that Apple is attempting to enter the EV market in some way. Let us ignore the evidence that has come to the surface as of late. The EV market has a lot of growth left and a lot of unclaimed territory. Apple has a lot of cash sitting around, a relative familiarity with power electronics and most importantly a very strong leader, Tim Cook. Apple is large and old but it does not appear to be fragmented and it is, IMHO, still capable of pouncing on new opportunities and markets. The means, motive, and opportunity all seem to exist in the case of Apple and EVs. And bringing the recent observations back into the equation only appears to strengthen the hypothesis. video of van: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lhU54nhyyk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lhU54nhyyk http://www.macrumors.com/2015/02/04/mysterious-apple-car/ http://www.macrumors.com/2015/02/04/mysterious-apple-car/ http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple-is-working-on-a-car http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple-is-working-on-a... http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-employee-well-give-tesla-a-run-for-its-money-2015-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-employee-well-give-tesl... http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-more-evidence-that-apple-could-be-working-on-a-car-2015-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-more-evidence-that-appl... http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-testing-street-view-competitor-2015-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-testing-street-view-com...

phkahler 12y ago

A couple months ago I was contacted by a recruiter from Apple on LinkedIn. He claimed my skillset was a great match for some new thing they were doing but wouldn't explain. I thought WTH, I'd been doing EVs for the last 6 years and non-EVs for longer than that. Maybe they need to get some official vague news out so they can actually hire the people they need?

fiatjaf 12y ago
What's an EV? How do you know they don't want an EV specialist?
- chm 12y ago
  Electric vehicle? If I was an engineer in the automobile industry, I'd be surprised to be contacted by Apple too.
stinos 12y ago
Similar story here; they weren't recruiting but showed lots of interest in a certain device an eventually bought the thing, while we have no idea what on earth they are planning to do with it and they of course wouldn't tell. So it seems that behind closed doors they are reseraching a lot of different areas, trying to figure out which one to explore/exploit. That sounds logical, Microsoft/Google/... do the same, but funnily enough I never looked at Apple that way - I always only saw the shiny end products. Must be their marketing.

melling 12y ago

I tried to make this point a couple of weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8962872 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8962872 Basically, Apple, Google, and Microsoft have so much money, they could take on a huge problem and "invent" the future.

ams6110 12y ago
1997-2000 showed us that having a lot of money is no guarantee you'll build something that anyone wants to use (or at least, that they want to pay for).
- melling 12y ago
  Who said anything about any guarantees? Hopefully, we're all a little smarter and if all three companies each tried a few moonshots, we'd get a few really big advances.
Jyaif 12y ago
Google X as been doing exactly that for a while now.

ullrich 12y ago

Finally I'll be able to call my car from my watch!

pj_mukh 12y ago

Also, given their hiring practices which include aggressive recruiting of people in autonomous vehicles, this car, or later versions of it is going to have significant autonomy. I say this would be a GREAT step for Apple.

beloch 12y ago

Apple hardware is generally beautiful and feels extremely well built, but usually makes a few key compromises of function for the sake of form, with the result that some of their gear is prone to failure after a surprisingly short period of time. Take pretty much every Apple cable ever made for example. They lack stress relief and, hence, tend to fall apart where they are stressed. Some of this can be blamed on Steve Jobs. Reportedly, it was Jobs who hated the look of stress relieved cables so much that he prevented Apple from adopting sensible cable designs. Hopefully Cook is less dogmatic in pursuing form over function. Even so, I'd be wary of a buying a new car from a first-time auto manufacturer, especially one with Apple's track record of compromised function. I'd be afraid that Apple, in trying to set their car apart from the competition, would build a car that is either unsafe or doomed to early failure. I'm sure people will line up to buy the iCar just like every other iProduct, but it may well prove sensible not to be amongst the first!

Hytosys 12y ago
I respect this sentiment and am not completely dismissing the analogy, but there are certainly more safety regulations and checks on cars than on low-voltage DC power cables.
- beloch 12y ago
  To flip that around, it's a lot easier to F up an automobile than a simple conductor!
Avitas 12y ago
...be wary. Hell yes. This is a product that, with a hidden bug or quirk, will kill, maim or hurt you and others around you. On the other hand, Apple has the capital to do this correctly. Even if they later decide to limit the scope of the project, it will pay dividends with their existing automotive control group. A project like this will take many years. But, with their best project managers, there's no doubt that they can do it. Who knows, with the kind of money they have now, I'd say even 5 years is doable. But, be mindful that the existing existing players such as BMW, Ford, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes, Nissan, Tesla, Toyota and VW are all getting better too. Electric cars aren't rocket science, but with all the regulations and bureaucratic red tape surrounding the automotive industry, it may as well be. Here's another kicker--Apple may be thinking about integrating some new thing(s) that are novel. It could be that Apple engineers have thought of some great way to combine X (and Y...) in some novel way with the automobile that will revolutionize the industry. If that's the case, you can expect even greater and more fanatical secrecy than the existing wall of silence. Here's the nice thing about a project like this as I see it. Cars are fun. They're sexy and lots of kids dream about driving, building, fixing and/or designing them. This is the type of thing that gets the public eye and can rally existing employees and potential employees. Who wouldn't want to work on a car? Lastly, just like the moonshot project of the 60's, you never know what technologies and ancillary benefits will come about because of something as complex and far-reaching as this appears to be.

hmate9 12y ago

I'm excited to see Elon Musk vs Apple. grabs popcorn

closetnerd 12y ago
I would have loved to see Elon Musk vs. Steve Jobs. Personalities are quite contrasting.
- godzillabrennus 12y ago
  Steve Jobs up ended multiple industries. Musk is no small player but Jobs basically reinvented the way the game was played when he entered an industry. Musk wouldn't have had a chance.
  - closetnerd 12y ago
    I'm inclined to believe you.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Sure, Musk is so limited. Let's see: Rockets, Cars, Payment systems.
    - closetnerd 12y ago
      It hasn't yet had the same impact that Apple has though.

jusben1369 12y ago

Cars are going to dictate what technology silo you end up joining. The car that works the best as a communicationpod/office will win the next major consumer battle just as Apple won the smart phone war. This is about Google not Tesla.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
pmontra 12y ago
There is a trend of not owning a car, at least in Europe, thanks to companies like car2go, moovel and many others. Uber too. Autonomous cars will further the trend. Cars are going to become a B2B product, not exactly Apple's playground. But this is in the long run so it could not matter even strategically. About winning the smartphone war, if Apple won it, that was the war for cash. Android won the war for usage, same way IE won the browser wars. I wonder what's the margin on a car. If you have to make low margin products to keep selling high margin ones you end up low margin overall. So, if Apple goes for $50+k cars, it will still be a high margin business but even more biased towards the richest consumers. If it goes for 10k cars, that will be a big change in strategy.
- jusben1369 12y ago
  I'm not too worried about ownership structure. Just usage (which isn't going away)

visarga 12y ago

No log in. It was nice while it lasted, for 1-2 phrases though.

stingrae 12y ago
search for the article title on google and you'll get a free link to view it, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCEQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fapples-titan-car-project-to-challenge-tesla-1423868072&ei=eObeVJOPE9PYoAT-gYGQBg&usg=AFQjCNFSnuEADDX0xPbswEMF-f9lqscQYw&sig2=l_-ODqRYaJ-po21Kw0Geaw&bvm=bv.85970519,d.cGU https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...

archagon 12y ago

I'm a little miffed that people don't express more skepticism about self-driving cars on tech sites. Given what I know about AI research and the technical limitations of LIDAR etc., I find it unlikely that fully self-driving cars will be available at any scale in our lifetimes — if at all. I wish people wouldn't talk about them like they're already de facto the future of transport. I think if Apple is working on a car, it's going to be a mass-consumer competitor to Tesla, not anything to do with self-driving.

funcSoulBrother 12y ago
Could you elaborate on this? What do you know about AI research and technical limitations of various components that leads you to be skeptical of the realization of autonomous vehicles? I'm with you on predicting that if Apple is getting into it, it will be non-autonomous, but I'm curious as to how you have reached your other incredulous conclusion.
- archagon 12y ago
  My skepticism has to do with the following: * People talk about how automatic cars have been extensively tested. That's not really true. There's only a handful of them on the roads and they've been tested in limited conditions, with particular limits placed on suburban driving (slow speeds, etc.). I suspect there will be entirely new classes of bugs when there are hundreds of different AIs competing on the road, especially when mixed with normal human traffic. * LIDAR does not work in poor weather conditions, including ice on the road. * In terms of AI, getting to the 90% point is relatively easy, but it seems like the last 10% would require something resembling true intelligence. How do you deal with a lack of markers on the road? Dangerous situations in shady areas? Sensor equipment getting damaged and feeding your car wrong information? Animals and children running out last-second into the road? Severe obstacles at a distance? Tiny, cramped residential roads with non-sidewalk pedestrian traffic? Accommodating emergency vehicles and police? We shut off our brains when driving 90% of the time, but that last 10% does require human levels of intelligence. Furthermore, unless every car on the road is automated, the AI in automatic cars will need to deal with the idiosyncrasies of other human drivers. Sudden merges. Speeding. Road rage. Unexpected emergencies. Tailgating. An AI can't send and receive feedback to other human drivers and pedestrians; it can only use its model of human behavior to predict likely outcomes. (And this is saying nothing of other AIs on the road, who might behave completely unlike human drivers.) * People say that automated cars only need to drive better than human drivers, not perfectly. I don't know if that's true. If automated cars drove perfectly 99.9999% of the time but then crashed horribly that remaining 0.0001% — taking some poor pedestrians or bicyclists along with them — I wouldn't get into one. And I don't think they'd be street-legal. Most people don't want to think about human lives in terms of numbers; they'd rather have control over their actions and accept the inevitability of occasional accidents, rather than having a machine that's practically guaranteed to eat up human lives every so often. * Speaking of which, how does the car decide who gets to live in a life-or-death situation? Are there situations where the car would elect to kill the driver? Which programmer gets to make that decision? I'd like to know this information before getting into my car, please. The idea of offloading split-second moral decisions to an AI seems like it should be severely legislated. * People talk about mesh networking improving traffic and whatnot. I can't even get my USB devices to work across OSes half the time, and we're talking about sophisticated traffic control across multiple manufacturers? Especially given the quality of software that car companies tend to put out? * Self-driving technology is extremely expensive, and most cars on the road are pretty cheap. You'd have to have some sort of insane subsidy program to get more than the 1% driving automated cars. * People want to get in their self-driving cars drunk, but I think there will be severe legal hurdles in the way of that. I think semi-automated and AI-augmented driving are certainly possible. Highways are easy enough to tackle. I could see some expensive cars getting that capability over the next few decades, as well as maybe cargo trucks. But endpoint to endpoint driving, where you could snooze on your way to work? I don't think so.

nemothekid 12y ago

With $200B in cash, I'd be surprised if Apple "X" wasn't also producing rocketships and quantum computers - all the while being very quiet about it.

chvid 12y ago

What if Volkswagen decided they wanted to do smart phones? And had recruiters call random people at Google, Samsung and Apple ... I cannot quite get my head around this - Apple is an excellent engineering, sales and design company with gigantic wealth - but the leap from computers and phones into automobile is very big. They have little in common wrt. sales, technology and support. Why would this work out? And does noone question the sanity of it?

agumonkey 12y ago
I guess the complexity of a an EV is a lot smaller and they bet on being able to manage the rest fast enough with a good HR attack.
etrautmann 12y ago
They have several key advantages that apply to this space: 1) unparalleled industrial design credibility, 2) a limitless money hose. If they decide to do this, they do have the ability to make the hires they need to give it an honest shot.

skc 12y ago

Apple's playbook is seems very clear to me. Fashionable utility. They get this better than anyone. Cars would seem like such a logical next step in that regard.

larssorenson 12y ago

I dislike Apple, their products and their "you're unique just like everyone else" mentality but i honestly want them to make this move and do it well. They might make an over priced, marginally better EV but more importantly they will drive interest in the technology and the products, leading to faster and greater adoption as well as serious industry commitment which will push for research and development and massive improvements in the industry. Just like they did with mobile phones. I love Tesla but they're the Palm pilot or BlackBerry of EV. Trend setters who will maybe get overshot.

matdrewin 12y ago

A "minivan-like" vehicule? I sure hope this is just a red herring Apple threw at the media to have them trip on their shoelaces.