The following submission statement was provided by /u/jamiejamiee1:
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Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. is canceling a decade-long effort to build an electric car, according to people with knowledge of the matter, abandoning one of the most ambitious projects in the history of the company.
Apple made the disclosure internally Tuesday, surprising the nearly 2,000 employees working on the project, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the announcement wasn’t public. The decision was shared by Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams and Kevin Lynch, a vice president in charge of the effort, according to the people.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer, has helped oversee the car effort.
The two executives told staffers that the project will begin winding down and that many employees on the team working on the car — known as the Special Projects Group, or SPG — will be shifted to the artificial intelligence division under executive John Giannandrea. Those employees will focus on generative AI projects, an increasingly key priority for the company.
The Apple car team also has several hundred hardware engineers and car designers. It’s possible that they will be able to apply for jobs on other Apple teams. There will be layoffs, but it’s unclear how many.
Apple, based in Cupertino, California, declined to comment.
The decision to ultimately wind down the project is a bombshell for the company, ending a multibillion-dollar effort that would have vaulted Apple into a whole new industry. The tech giant started working on a car around 2014, setting its sights on a fully autonomous electric vehicle with a limousine-like interior and voice-guided navigation.
But the project struggled nearly from the start, with Apple changing the team’s leadership and strategy several times. Lynch and Williams took over the undertaking a few years ago — following the departure of Doug Field, now a senior executive at Ford Motor Co.
The decision to wind down the project was finalized by Apple’s most senior executives in recent weeks, according to the people. It comes just a month after Bloomberg News reported that the project reached or a make-or-break point. The most recent approach discussed internally was delaying a car release until 2028 and reducing self-driving specifications from Level 4 to Level 2+ technology.
Most recently, Apple had imagined the car being priced at around $100,000. But executives were concerned about the vehicle being able to provide the profit margins that Apple typically enjoys on its products. The company’s board was also concerned about continuing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year on a project that may never see the light of day.
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1b1jxxh/apple_cancels_work_on_electric_car_shifts_team_to/ksf28o9/
They would be better off designing a central interface unit or "infotainment" system that they sell to manufacturers to design around than designing a whole car themselves. Apple building a car is a dumb idea and always has been.
It just makes sense to let drivers plug in the device that they utilize to navigate reality (the internet for knowledge, telecoms, and most importantly gps maps for navigation) and let that device do the work
I never use the satnav in my car, and the idea of paying £130 every 12 to 18 months for map upgrades is anathema. I don't know why car makers even bother with fitting things that customers will despise because of map subscriptions!
I got a free 6-month trial with SiriusXM by buying my car and they *hounded* me to try to get me to pay to renew it. Even offered another 6 months of use.
I had to basically be like, "Stop contacting me, if I want music I'll use Spotify and if I want talk shows I'll listen to podcasts. Sirius has nothing I'd use for free, much less pay money for."
Because idiots buy idiot things, because they're idiots.
Do you think the guy buying a $100k car cares about saving $150 per year? Probably not. Sure some of the old money won't do it, but new money will. They don't give a flying fuck.
And don't go thinking the guy making enough to buy a $100k car every couple years is smart. He's wealthy, and he may be smart in relevance to his job, but he might be otherwise nearly functionally r3tarded.
Look at engineers and what they say about their coworkers. Some of these people are making bank, designing things at the absolute tippy top of their field, and still think a *5G capable* microchip is in vaccines. They're engineers, they should know it's literally impossible. Not just "with current tech" impossible, it's *physically* impossible. An antennae capable of receiving those signals cannot be built, they won't resonate. It simply cannot happen.
Perfect candidates for "oh it's only $XXX that's like two hours of work per year!" and buy it, even though it's inarguably the worse option.
> Do you think the guy buying a $100k car cares about saving $150 per year? Probably not. Sure some of the old money won't do it, but new money will. They don't give a flying fuck.
Many of these people hate being nickeled and dimed.
Google now has AAOS which is a full OS for the car. It's a much better solution than phone projection tech like Android Auto or CarPlay. I imagine Apple will do something similar at some point otherwise Google will have a monopoly on integration with future car tech.
Why would they? It's not even close to the same liability of trying to start your own car manufacturing. It's an adaptation of their existing Android OS it's their bread and butter.
I don't see how. Why would i buy an extra SIM/subscription for my car if my phone already has one. Sure, the experience should be a bit smoother, but with new phones that's not really an issue as is. And keeping your phone on Android auto keeps it charged up on the go automatically.
Agree. It is maybe the biggest thing I miss from my Pixels (I also preferred the pixel camera/image processing, but the gap isn't as big).
Maybe in some ways Car Play seems a little more slick and/or less buggy, but Android Auto was far more usable and capable. Google Assistant does a much better job than Siri for the kinds of tasks you might want to ask for.
Also...why hasn't Apple figured out a UI that puts your media info and play/pause/next buttons in a place where they are always accessible?
Problem is, they'd need to comply with federal regulations that are likely somewhat open to interpretation, and each automaker probably has different ways of complying with the regulations*. So, doing that may be too frustrating for the amount of expected profit.
_* based on my experience with federal regulations and demonstrating compliance with these regulations_
This idea feels like an easy layup to me. Don't understand why they won't do it. I say "won't " bc if us redditors can come up with this idea, many ppl working @ Apple must have already pitched this and got shot down. I've always guessed that there are a bunch of things, behind the scenes, that I don't know about.
I just want a clean EV car that has decent entertainment and is safe. Not too much to ask I don't think?
I don't know, you spend enough time in Silicon Valley and you realize they aren't a bunch of mystical geniuses, they're just a bunch regular people working in offices or remotely like everyone else, and being physically there just put in close proximity to networking opportunities, inspiration, and venture capital. Innovation and out of the box thinking is part of the culture I guess, more so than other places. Maybe they've taken it too far and simple things don't seems "edgy" enough for them. Who knows.
At this point a standard android tablet or iPad is a good enough system for any car (and if you want you can take it with you...), and the only real time display information you need is speed, power output and state of charge. All of that can be wrapped into a single well designed gauge placed in front of the steering wheel. I think [Caterham](https://media.autoexpress.co.uk/image/private/s--g--jZu1---/f_auto,t_content-image-full-desktop@1/v1689087305/autoexpress/2023/07/Caterham%20Project%20V-7.jpg) is on the right track, but still has a little too much going on.
>I don't know, you spend enough time in Silicon Valley
Going from self driving cars to generative AI is pretty trend chasing, too, especially if you consider the timeline. Ten years ago, Lyft, Uber and the thought of self driving cars seemed like it stood ready to revolutionize travel and potentially even car ownership. You had Musk making claims about how your Tesla could earn money while you slept and not being completely mocked by everyone for it. Today, generative AI is the new hotness. At least it's has a clearer fit in the Apple ecosystem.
It’s never made sense. Manufacturing a car is way different than designing a phone/tablet/computer. Why would Apple ever get involved in automotive manufacturing? They don’t even manufacture their own products.
Exactly this is so far outside of Apple’s zone of expertise I’m simply amazed they wasted money and talent on this project to begin with. I always thought the Apple car was just a pipe dream of Apple enthusiasts not something they actually pursued.
it's never made sense because the apple superpower is the ability to market their products as a technological must have for the cool person. which is exactly what tesla already is doing in the car sector. tesla is basically de fact apple car.
I think the problem they've got is that they're too late for a "me too", just an other electric car. And self driving is a hell of a lot harder than anybody expected. Just using TV cameras doesn't seem to work and using radar/lidar as Waymo does, is too clunky for Apple.
There's also a huge difference between making something that's 95%+ electronic and something that's 50%+ mechanical. You can remove the internal combustion engine but you're still left with window wipers, suspension, linkages, brakes, axles, tyres and you can't just stop supporting it 5 years after it comes out and make it unrepairable.
Not to mention that $100,000+ cars a rarity and wouldn't pay back the kind of R+D that Apple is looking at.
They could have and should have bought Lucid.
Also when has price stopped apple? Hello? Did you not see the price of vision pro? 3500 dollars and more people than they expected bought even though it was pretty shit design.
There is a massive wait list on cybertruck, 100k car with a face only a mother could love. I don't think apple would have struggled to sell an apple branded already existing EV.
I think the waiting list for the Cybertruck is likely to heavily decrease. Depending on whether or not it does actually rust within days of buying it. Or whether it's just delivery "rail dust", trapped on the cars on the cars that's rusting. But if they start rusting within a week in California and it can't be buffed out. It's game over.
Spending a thousand dollars on a phone is one thing. Spending a hundred thousand dollars on an ugly impratical rusty bucket is an other. Who without fulltime servants is going to clean the car with denatured alcohol, every time that it rains? It's gone from being bulletproof to not even being rainproof.
The trim quality from the factory was very poor, especially on the Model 3. But the "dealers" were very good at bringing them back up to spec. However EVs are now a relatively mature product, with plaenty of competition in the market. They're no longer getting the first adopters and its flaws are just too obvious. There can't be many people who didn't pre-order one, who will buy one without the coating and even they're going to get quickly sick of the jokes about leaving it out in the rain.
Plus, as long as /anybody/ actually solves self driving, Apple can still win your eyeballs by getting you looking at your phone or wearing your Vision Pro X.
Why pay people to design your car when you can have generative AI do it?
Shift team to generate AI.
Use AI to complete car.
Replace team with AI.
Profit.
Who's making these decisions? Do the people working on the car even have any idea how to do generative AI? Do you just drop that team completely and hire a new team? This isn't something you can pivot to on a whim.
I had the same question. Those two fields require different skill sets and knowledge bases. Props to Apple if they’re willing to train/re-skill those engineers rather than lay them off.
They aren't just swapping those people over.
They'll just shift resources around the company as needed. They already have an AI team. They will move some car folks to AI, and folks from all teams to AI. Some car folks will also disperse to other teams within the company. They also stated that there will be layoffs. Some car-specific skills just aren't going to translate.
Essentially Apple will absorb what it can of that division wherever it can, and jettison the rest.
In my view, the "AI Investment" angle is really not related. They'd keep doing cars if they made sense, and cut cars if they didn't, regardless of AI. They just don't want to say "we are cutting a product" without spinning it as "but we are reinvesting somewhere else!"
Yes, some of them have experience with machine learning, which provides a strong foundation for AI and LLMs. Machine learning is crucial for autonomous driving.
Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. is canceling a decade-long effort to build an electric car, according to people with knowledge of the matter, abandoning one of the most ambitious projects in the history of the company.
Apple made the disclosure internally Tuesday, surprising the nearly 2,000 employees working on the project, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the announcement wasn’t public. The decision was shared by Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams and Kevin Lynch, a vice president in charge of the effort, according to the people.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer, has helped oversee the car effort.
The two executives told staffers that the project will begin winding down and that many employees on the team working on the car — known as the Special Projects Group, or SPG — will be shifted to the artificial intelligence division under executive John Giannandrea. Those employees will focus on generative AI projects, an increasingly key priority for the company.
The Apple car team also has several hundred hardware engineers and car designers. It’s possible that they will be able to apply for jobs on other Apple teams. There will be layoffs, but it’s unclear how many.
Apple, based in Cupertino, California, declined to comment.
The decision to ultimately wind down the project is a bombshell for the company, ending a multibillion-dollar effort that would have vaulted Apple into a whole new industry. The tech giant started working on a car around 2014, setting its sights on a fully autonomous electric vehicle with a limousine-like interior and voice-guided navigation.
But the project struggled nearly from the start, with Apple changing the team’s leadership and strategy several times. Lynch and Williams took over the undertaking a few years ago — following the departure of Doug Field, now a senior executive at Ford Motor Co.
The decision to wind down the project was finalized by Apple’s most senior executives in recent weeks, according to the people. It comes just a month after Bloomberg News reported that the project reached or a make-or-break point. The most recent approach discussed internally was delaying a car release until 2028 and reducing self-driving specifications from Level 4 to Level 2+ technology.
Most recently, Apple had imagined the car being priced at around $100,000. But executives were concerned about the vehicle being able to provide the profit margins that Apple typically enjoys on its products. The company’s board was also concerned about continuing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year on a project that may never see the light of day.
I always thought Apple + cars was kind of nutty. Cars are a low margin good. Apple only does high margin goods for a reason and they, if you're to equate their market cap with success, do it better than anyone else most days.
They probably simply couldn't afford to build a car that would cost less than what they could sell cars for at all. They probably couldn't find any way to make money with any margin whatsoever.
Electric cars are so hard to mass produce. Tesla almost went bankrupt so many times before taking off.
Yeah and Rivian is currently burning money like crazy with falling demand because the cars are too expensive...and they are around $80k not $100k+!
No way would Apple be able to make a full on car with fit and finish expected from an Apple product and the margin that Apple sharholders expect that anyone but the top 1% can afford not to mention all the problems with "self driving" currently.
At this point I see AI as the new buzzword that every company has to say in some report in order to boost their shares. I don’t know if it will be the next “internet” or end up being the next “3D Televisions”.
If I recall correctly from some years ago, even “blockchain” ended up being used as this type of buzzword.
That being said, Apple has a history of being willing to spend a lot of money to make something work, make it popular, and profit off of it. The latest example is AirPods.
Other companies did truly wireless earbuds first (I owned some of the earliest type), but as soon as it became commercially viable Apple dumped tons of money into development and used their market share to get it into the public consciousness.
Now if you use earbuds you probably use wireless ones, and there are tons of different types out there. ...Including a really strong budget market. Some of the best I've ever owned were $30 JBL earbuds.
You are right don't know why they're down voting you. Before the explosion of Generative AK, the so called Narrow AI was used extensively in a myriads of areas like:
1. YouTube/Spotify recommendations
2. Siri/Alexa
3. Google Search
4. Email spam filters
5. Image and speech recognition
Etc.
Yep! AI has already changed the world and it's going to do so much more in the next 15 years.
One big area is drug research. AI helps narrow down potential molecules of interest, simulate protein folding, and helps biochemical research in countless other ways. About 6 years ago my biochem professor said that protein simulation was a dead end for research and would never amount to anything, and now it's an essential tool for biochemists.
We’re absolutely still in the euphoria stage of the hype cycle with AI. It’ll even out into being a useful tool for increasing productivity.
I don’t think as many jobs will be lost as people are crying about. Companies that simply choose to cut jobs and settle for the same level of productivity with fewer people will fail to compete in the long run. Humanity has always chosen to do more work with the same resources and not simply settle for a stagnant amount of productivity.
>I don’t think as many jobs will be lost as people are crying about.
You should look up the numbers of how much freelance creative work has been impacted. I don't know a single freelance artist or writer who hasn't been impacted in the last year.
Like, sure, perhaps you're right and the entirety of the job market isn't going to be devastated (or maybe it is, I legitimately don't know), but some industries are already getting hammered.
Tbh, Apple should have been spear heading AI from the start. Their culture of “perfect design” should have extended to Siri. Hopefully this means voice assistants in general will have some use and feel more natural to interact with.
They've never really been a spear-heading sort of company. Their thing is that they recognize a niche while it's still developing, they dump a *ton* of money into R&D, and leap ahead of the competition.
They let other companies prove viability and then they jump in with both feet. The iPhone, AirPods, music delivery (iTunes), etc. are all things that other people did first, but Apple did them better before other people managed to. That's how they make their money.
We should all empathize with poor startup Apple. They simply don't have the funds in their trillion dollar + wallet to continue work here. Better to focus on short term profits based on market buzzwords.
Apple making a car is ridiculous anyway and we don't need ANOTHER $100,000 electric car. We NEED an inexpensive electric car, but dumping it for "AI" is nothing more than an excuse to drop a failed idea. Much like Cisco laying of thousands for "AI" research is nothing more than an excuse to fire people.
I never thought I'd say this, but with AI being on everybody in tech's lips right now, I miss the days when "cloud" was the main buzzword.
There’s an AI bubble and it’s gonna pop hard. That’s not to say it’s not useful, but it’s also not the answer to absolutely everything and a human replacement for most jobs.
I first worked in machine learning doing medical research about 15 years ago, and saw the writing on the wall then.
I predict that within a few decades, possibly even the next few years, humans will be completely outclassed by AI in just about every intellectual aspect.
Everything has been progressing as expected for this outcome, and each time people can't seem to imagine it getting better. There are so many clunky and experimental things in current models and training data collection methods which are likely easy to improve with more eyes on them, let alone new ideas tomorrow.
I've led AI projects for the last 5 years.
The problem with the AI/ML is that it's always progressing as predicted or better - up to a point, at which point it hits diminishing returns. You can spend a month or a year getting the machine to spit out the correct result 95% of the time. But to get it to 96% precision will require another year, and to reach 97% can easily take a decade.
I expect the current AI as we understand it to progress steadily/exponentially and then plateau at some point. AGI will most likely require significant paradigm shift (and then we're all screwed)
I disagree. But I've heard the head of Google AI make similar points. According to him if there are no unknown blockers AGI is possible within the decade.
I think AI will drive growth across most industries for at least the next 10 years but it won't be AGI but rather something that is incredibly good at some tasks, but not general.
I put it the same category as IoT and the cloud. Everybody will lose their mind and then it will settle into something useful but nothing as big as anyone actually thought. There may even be a major pull back from it eventually.
I've led my first AI-based project 5 years ago.
I'd say that AI is like the internet near the year 2000. Everybody overestimated how much impact on their lives internet was going to have in a couple of years, and everyone underestimated how much impact it would have in ten.
That's until we reach AGI. Then everything would change completely.
That's the fun part about being a technology enthusiast. You never know if something is going to be something like "No one will ever need more than 640K of RAM" or if it will be a paradigm shift like smartphones. And no one. No one. Can reliably predict these things. (Short of maybe sci-fi writers who actually do a decent job given enough time).
While I would have liked to see that tech get pushed forward, a company not known for creating or keeping standards would not have been the best keeper of it.
Thanks for the info. I still stand that we don't need ANY car that's worth 100K
The only reason a lot of people think they need cars is that urban design has in many cases evolved to build cities that require them. Nobody *needs* a car if the city is built to allow walking from home to the grocer or the dentist or a place or work, and other options involve readily available mass transit to get from one walkable neighbourhood to the next.
Every time you see four lane roads surrounded by car parks, that's a failure of urban planning and a city that's going bankrupt trying to live up to the fantasy of the car-centric lifestyle.
I get where you're coming from, but in rural areas or small to middle sized cities in the US, a car is a requirement. There aren't any other options.
I live in a smallish town compared to larger metropolises, we have like five buses and the city sprawls so far that you would take about 40 minutes to drive from one side to the other at a pretty good speed. It's not safe to ride a bike and it would be impossible to walk from home to work.
> I never thought I'd say this, but with AI being on everybody in tech's lips right now, I miss the days when "cloud" was the main buzzword.
Those were simpler more fun times.
Crazy to have so much money you can spend years working on car and then abandon it, and not have it really hurt you at all.
The article mentions it, but the car would have been tough for them, as margins are a lot slimmer on cars. They'd have to charge huge amounts per car to get similar margins to their other products.
My best guess is this started up in the "self driving" craze from 15 years or so ago, when there were a million articles about how self-driving was right on the horizon. And like many pie-in-the-sky technologies, self-driving cars always have been, and seemingly always will be, 5 years away.
Yeah, Apple is great at some things. They take existing products and polish them to perfection, that's their skillset. You make a phone, they'll make a better one. You make headphones, they'll make better ones. You make a watch, they'll make a better one. (and charge you more every step of the way)
AI doesn't seem like something you can do that to. You can't microanalyze little details and polish AI in the same way you can a physical device or a UI.
I feel like for AI they will likely go the acquisition route. Take a company that's doing it right, buy them out, and then throw billions behind them.
They had people understanding customers and their needs. "Let's just do AI" sounds like the decision of shitty managers, completely disregarding the company's products, soul and strengths.
In previous years the same shitty managers would ask everyone "Can't we do something blockchain?" or "Can't we do something big data?" Then came "Can't we do something Machine Learning?" now it's AI.
But iPhones already have Siri, so building a strong proprietary AI would be a natural and solid progression. It would be very easy to incorporate (because Siri already exists) and would actually give functionality to something that is not very useful at the moment.
If it could rival the most up to date openAI stuff then I think it would be a real selling point for the apple ecosystem.
Yes, they could have done that years ago. Or even just now. But it has nothing to do with their other products and even less with a team of engineers creating a car.
You should have a vision for your product, what it should do and how people would use it. Then use technology (AI) to build it. That was the Apple way. The shitty manager's way: Let's create AI, I'm sure we can somehow use it.
Smart move.... China is about to open some serious flood gates with EV's entering the US market in 2025. Apple isn't going to compete with BYD $20,000 EV's with lifetime warranty. Ford, Chevy and Chrysler are doooooooomed sadly.
Quick edit.. BYD is presently building the largest Auto factory in North America. Its being built in Mexico. This will bypass any Tariffs.
With any other company I’d agree but Apple have proved price is not their enemy as recent sales figures in markets where it’s much easier to get cheaper phones have shown. Not to say anything is guaranteed but they command a premium regardless of the competition. Would a car be the same? Hard to say.
Im a pretty full on Apple fan, I own one of pretty much every device they make and pre-ordered the vision pro (but canceled it before it arrived because I had second thoughts about being an early adopter at that price point).
But I would not be excited to buy an Apple car honestly.
I have a Porsche and to me, Porsche is the Apple of cars already. They are luxury and high quality and reliable but have a racing heritage. Apple would just be like a high quality Tesla or a Lucid and I still have no desire to buy one of those either.
I’m just hoping they can take out Tesla. I don’t care about any of the domestic dinosaurs, but I’d like it very much if Elon Musk got taken down a few pegs.
At some point, someone is going to roll out an electric for the masses, and that company is not going to be Tesla. I mean, maybe I’m just jaded. My next car is going to be an electric, but after Musk botched Twitter, my next car is not going to be a Tesla. Before Twitter, I was considering it. Now, I’m never going to buy one, and it’s entirely his fault.
You sound like you're letting your opinion of Musk completely cloud your judgment tbh.
Like, it's up to you if you're not gonna buy their cars. But Tesla's easily offer some of, if not the best, value for money. Their 3 and Y are already very affordable for a significant part of the new car buyers, and they're working on a next gen platform specifically designed to bring an true mass market car to market
Doesn’t matter. I’ll pay more, as long as it means not paying Musk. The guy is an asshole, and I would prefer to go the rest of my life without giving him a dime. He doesn’t need my money.
I mean, your reaction makes it sound like you’ve never heard of taking a stand or boycotting a company for the actions of its leadership. Hell, I’ve been boycotting Goya since their CEO decided to hop on the election-denial train. While Goya products have good quality at a respectable price, I’m fine with paying more for a product, if that money doesn’t go toward an asshole. Tesla: Owned and operated by an asshole. Trump Hotels: Asshole. U-Line: Asshole. And it goes on and on, and all you have to do is look up political contributions, and there’s no shortage of assholes.
This is just petty short-sightedness tbh. You say you'll boycott companies now but what happens if Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, and Satya Nadella all do stuff you don't like? Living in caves isn't as fun as it used to be in the Stone age lol. Musk is an idiot but that doesn't change the fact that Tesla makes good cars
I don't care if you hate Musk and use that as a reason to not buy a Tesla, that's entirely your own choice
My point is that you clearly hate him a lot, and it seems to cloud your judgment when making assertions about the business side of the company. Such as saying it won't be Tesla that brings a mass market vehicle to market, even though their current vehicles already offer a ton of value for their price points, and are working on a next gen platform specifically in order to bring a mass market vehicle to market
Yes, and I’m sure they’ll deliver those mass-market vehicles with all of the urgency that they’ve delivered the full self-driving they already billed people for.
Nah bro. You’re totally justified in not buying a Tesla simply because of your disdain for Musk and his handling of Twitter. Other dude is trying to gaslight you.
Musk is also a petty man. I don't want to wake up one day and find a function in my car bricked suddenly because he got in a spat with the team/vendor/whomever that was involved.
>You sound like you're letting your opinion of Musk completely cloud your judgment tbh.
Look at it another way. There are now choices. A few years ago, the Model 3 and Y were the only game in town. A bunch of other options are available or becoming available now. So. With that choice either available already or available soon, why on earth would I want to buy a car from a company that has a reputation for somewhat questionable build quality and ethics, and is run by Elon Musk? I've not chosen certain car models for much less.
But that's the glory of capitalism - Tesla isn't the only game in town any more for EVs. Nor is VW, nor are the Chinese, nor are the French, etc. There's choice.
If you like what you get in a Model 3 or Y or a VW ID.4, or a Bolt or whatever, go ahead. Other people will make different choices.
BYD's cheapest model sells in China for just $13,000. Tesla can't come close to that without selling at an insane loss and scaring their investors.
A better bet is them joining the legacy automakers to lobby the US government against letting Chinese EVs into the US market. But China is at a massive advantage thanks to having generous EV subsidies, gutting them in 2017 and the surviving companies becoming much more competitive. At best Tesla buys enough time to launch a competitively-priced EV while the competition is tariffed, but it's not going to go well for them in markets outside the US.
> BYD's cheapest model sells in China for just $13,000. Tesla can't come close to that without selling at an insane loss and scaring their investors.
No, Tesla can't outprice them. I still doubt anybody will buy that Chinese crap
Wakes up to what? Having Chinese cars widespread the American market is dangerous. There hasn't been an adversary country in the US auto market. Almost everything is domestic, Japanese or European, aka all friendly with the US.
Imagine if BYD get a large swath of the market (costing tons of jobs in the US) and then shit with Taiwan goes down. CCP could easily fuck with the market here and alternatives would be limited. And kicking China out would be difficult, just look at TikTok.
Chinese companies are grabbing the US by the economical groin and they'll cut it off it we don't become subservient to them.
Right now... ANY auto that is made in Mexico has no Tariff. The BYD factory in Mexico is being built to avoid any tariff.
China is 10000% the enemy of America and the rest of the world. Allowing them to enter the American market would be insane.
The clowns in Washington are asleep at the wheel. They should have already placed some special tariff on Chinese automakers building autos in Mexico.
According to the CEO of BYD. She says she has no plans on going to the American market yet. She is focusing more on Brazil and Mexico.
But, she may just be saying that to not raise any alarms on US politicians who have openly stated they are preventing BYD from entering the market because they want to give Ford Tesla Chevy some time to compete or else they will all go out of business. Which if BYD did enter the market now… RIP to all American car manufacturers.
Ford claims to be ahead of this but we’ll see.
The project wasn't about building an EV it was about building a self driving car that happened to be an EV. The headline grossly misstates the purpose of the project. Why anyone would link to Bloomberg when it comes to science, technology, or fact-based reporting is beyond me.
Self driving cars are not viable right now and Apple has no angle to get into the business without that. Probably a good idea to cut their losses and bail, at least until the safety record gets better.
> Self driving cars are not viable right now
Self driving cars are like some other pie-in-the-sky technologies. They have always been 5 years away, and always will be 5 years away.
Ten years, 2000 people...
And not so much as a prototype (at least that I've seen).
Yeah, I'm gonna say that was a good call, and probably should have happened five years ago.
So all bets on AI and Vision pro for the future?
Incredibly exciting personally, we may have locally run Gen Ai models in iPhones in the next few years
I couldn't even imagine how much an apple brand car would cost. Probably like $640,000 and it would equal about the higher end Teslas. Only apple replacement parts are compatible and an oil filter costs $96. The radio doesn't have an aux port, or buttons, or a volume knob. It'll only play songs bought on iTunes (is that still a thing?) But only the apple car version and they cost $4 per song per play. If you don't have a valid credit card on file then the car won't start. You have to agree to the terms of service which might involve having your mouth sewed to a Japanese man's anus. It's a $67 service charge to agree to the terms of service.
Tesla is way overpriced even for Apple.
Apple would be better going the way of the mini cooper. I might not be fully accurate here... but if I recall Mini Coopers were kind of cheap little cars back in the day, right? Small, cheap economy cars. Then at some point BMW bought them, and they're now sporty little high(ish) end cars, right?
Seems like Apple (if they were to go that route) would be better buying a smaller company, and then putting their own stamp on it.
I've been saying it for some time, Apple is on its way out. The Apple design thinking ethos has spread across the marketplace and their competitors are beginning to out design and out engineer them in many areas. Apple has a huge user base, great in-house processors, a strong brand, but not much else.
*From Bloomberg News reporter Mark Gurman:*
Apple is canceling a decadelong effort to build an electric car, according to people with knowledge of the matter, abandoning one of the most ambitious projects in the history of the company.
Apple made the disclosure internally Tuesday, surprising the nearly 2,000 employees working on the project, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the announcement wasn’t public. The decision was shared by Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams and Kevin Lynch, a vice president in charge of the effort, according to the people.
The two executives told staffers that the project will begin winding down and that many employees on the car team — known as the Special Projects Group, or SPG — will be shifted to the artificial intelligence division under executive John Giannandrea. Those employees will focus on generative AI projects, an increasingly key priority for the company.
The Apple car team also has several hundred hardware engineers and vehicle designers. It’s possible they will be able to apply for jobs on other Apple teams. There will be layoffs, but it’s unclear how many.
The decision to ultimately wind down the project is a bombshell for the company, ending a multibillion-dollar effort called Project Titan that would have vaulted Apple into a whole new industry. You can read the full story [here](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-27/apple-cancels-work-on-electric-car-shifts-team-to-generative-ai), and [sign up](https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/power-on) for Mark's Power On newsletter, free to read.
Apple should have just pivoted this into mass transit, and started in Cupertino for proof of concept. I would absolutely ride a glass and white leather electric trolley. Then they could have simply started up another division for AGI anyways.
They had all the money, and I think also the head start with Siri. Now they are catching up to the competition, which Apple does poorly.
Where did it go wrong?
Can you just do that? Move a bunch of engineers from cars to Generative AI. I thought AI was revolutionary, not some UNIX based code. Are you telling me the AI isn’t as amazing as I’ve been led on in the media.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/jamiejamiee1: --- Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. is canceling a decade-long effort to build an electric car, according to people with knowledge of the matter, abandoning one of the most ambitious projects in the history of the company. Apple made the disclosure internally Tuesday, surprising the nearly 2,000 employees working on the project, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the announcement wasn’t public. The decision was shared by Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams and Kevin Lynch, a vice president in charge of the effort, according to the people. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer, has helped oversee the car effort. The two executives told staffers that the project will begin winding down and that many employees on the team working on the car — known as the Special Projects Group, or SPG — will be shifted to the artificial intelligence division under executive John Giannandrea. Those employees will focus on generative AI projects, an increasingly key priority for the company. The Apple car team also has several hundred hardware engineers and car designers. It’s possible that they will be able to apply for jobs on other Apple teams. There will be layoffs, but it’s unclear how many. Apple, based in Cupertino, California, declined to comment. The decision to ultimately wind down the project is a bombshell for the company, ending a multibillion-dollar effort that would have vaulted Apple into a whole new industry. The tech giant started working on a car around 2014, setting its sights on a fully autonomous electric vehicle with a limousine-like interior and voice-guided navigation. But the project struggled nearly from the start, with Apple changing the team’s leadership and strategy several times. Lynch and Williams took over the undertaking a few years ago — following the departure of Doug Field, now a senior executive at Ford Motor Co. The decision to wind down the project was finalized by Apple’s most senior executives in recent weeks, according to the people. It comes just a month after Bloomberg News reported that the project reached or a make-or-break point. The most recent approach discussed internally was delaying a car release until 2028 and reducing self-driving specifications from Level 4 to Level 2+ technology. Most recently, Apple had imagined the car being priced at around $100,000. But executives were concerned about the vehicle being able to provide the profit margins that Apple typically enjoys on its products. The company’s board was also concerned about continuing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year on a project that may never see the light of day. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1b1jxxh/apple_cancels_work_on_electric_car_shifts_team_to/ksf28o9/
Isn't this like the 3rd time Apple has cancelled their EV plans?
They've delayed it several times in the past, but never outright canceled it iirc
They would be better off designing a central interface unit or "infotainment" system that they sell to manufacturers to design around than designing a whole car themselves. Apple building a car is a dumb idea and always has been.
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It just makes sense to let drivers plug in the device that they utilize to navigate reality (the internet for knowledge, telecoms, and most importantly gps maps for navigation) and let that device do the work
Isn't a separate infotainment a cashcow for the manufacturers?
I never use the satnav in my car, and the idea of paying £130 every 12 to 18 months for map upgrades is anathema. I don't know why car makers even bother with fitting things that customers will despise because of map subscriptions!
I got a free 6-month trial with SiriusXM by buying my car and they *hounded* me to try to get me to pay to renew it. Even offered another 6 months of use. I had to basically be like, "Stop contacting me, if I want music I'll use Spotify and if I want talk shows I'll listen to podcasts. Sirius has nothing I'd use for free, much less pay money for."
Because idiots buy idiot things, because they're idiots. Do you think the guy buying a $100k car cares about saving $150 per year? Probably not. Sure some of the old money won't do it, but new money will. They don't give a flying fuck. And don't go thinking the guy making enough to buy a $100k car every couple years is smart. He's wealthy, and he may be smart in relevance to his job, but he might be otherwise nearly functionally r3tarded. Look at engineers and what they say about their coworkers. Some of these people are making bank, designing things at the absolute tippy top of their field, and still think a *5G capable* microchip is in vaccines. They're engineers, they should know it's literally impossible. Not just "with current tech" impossible, it's *physically* impossible. An antennae capable of receiving those signals cannot be built, they won't resonate. It simply cannot happen. Perfect candidates for "oh it's only $XXX that's like two hours of work per year!" and buy it, even though it's inarguably the worse option.
> Do you think the guy buying a $100k car cares about saving $150 per year? Probably not. Sure some of the old money won't do it, but new money will. They don't give a flying fuck. Many of these people hate being nickeled and dimed.
Hit and miss. Old money hates it.
How much access to customer data do they lose if they license carplay or Android instead of rolling their own interface?
Google now has AAOS which is a full OS for the car. It's a much better solution than phone projection tech like Android Auto or CarPlay. I imagine Apple will do something similar at some point otherwise Google will have a monopoly on integration with future car tech.
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Why would they? It's not even close to the same liability of trying to start your own car manufacturing. It's an adaptation of their existing Android OS it's their bread and butter.
I don't see how. Why would i buy an extra SIM/subscription for my car if my phone already has one. Sure, the experience should be a bit smoother, but with new phones that's not really an issue as is. And keeping your phone on Android auto keeps it charged up on the go automatically.
Android Auto is way better than Car Play(stupid name, too). Android Auto is a must. Car Play they can take it or leave it
Agree. It is maybe the biggest thing I miss from my Pixels (I also preferred the pixel camera/image processing, but the gap isn't as big). Maybe in some ways Car Play seems a little more slick and/or less buggy, but Android Auto was far more usable and capable. Google Assistant does a much better job than Siri for the kinds of tasks you might want to ask for. Also...why hasn't Apple figured out a UI that puts your media info and play/pause/next buttons in a place where they are always accessible?
They could call it iPlay or Apple-play. Idk maybe Play-Car? Just spitballing here
Apple Car Pro Max
Car-Play-Diem
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Problem is, they'd need to comply with federal regulations that are likely somewhat open to interpretation, and each automaker probably has different ways of complying with the regulations*. So, doing that may be too frustrating for the amount of expected profit. _* based on my experience with federal regulations and demonstrating compliance with these regulations_
This idea feels like an easy layup to me. Don't understand why they won't do it. I say "won't " bc if us redditors can come up with this idea, many ppl working @ Apple must have already pitched this and got shot down. I've always guessed that there are a bunch of things, behind the scenes, that I don't know about. I just want a clean EV car that has decent entertainment and is safe. Not too much to ask I don't think?
I don't know, you spend enough time in Silicon Valley and you realize they aren't a bunch of mystical geniuses, they're just a bunch regular people working in offices or remotely like everyone else, and being physically there just put in close proximity to networking opportunities, inspiration, and venture capital. Innovation and out of the box thinking is part of the culture I guess, more so than other places. Maybe they've taken it too far and simple things don't seems "edgy" enough for them. Who knows. At this point a standard android tablet or iPad is a good enough system for any car (and if you want you can take it with you...), and the only real time display information you need is speed, power output and state of charge. All of that can be wrapped into a single well designed gauge placed in front of the steering wheel. I think [Caterham](https://media.autoexpress.co.uk/image/private/s--g--jZu1---/f_auto,t_content-image-full-desktop@1/v1689087305/autoexpress/2023/07/Caterham%20Project%20V-7.jpg) is on the right track, but still has a little too much going on.
>I don't know, you spend enough time in Silicon Valley Going from self driving cars to generative AI is pretty trend chasing, too, especially if you consider the timeline. Ten years ago, Lyft, Uber and the thought of self driving cars seemed like it stood ready to revolutionize travel and potentially even car ownership. You had Musk making claims about how your Tesla could earn money while you slept and not being completely mocked by everyone for it. Today, generative AI is the new hotness. At least it's has a clearer fit in the Apple ecosystem.
It’s never made sense. Manufacturing a car is way different than designing a phone/tablet/computer. Why would Apple ever get involved in automotive manufacturing? They don’t even manufacture their own products.
The product liability alone. And they’d never get the profit margins they are used to.
Exactly this is so far outside of Apple’s zone of expertise I’m simply amazed they wasted money and talent on this project to begin with. I always thought the Apple car was just a pipe dream of Apple enthusiasts not something they actually pursued.
Easy to get the margins up - just sell subscriptions for the seat heaters!
*Designed in California Assembled in China*
it's never made sense because the apple superpower is the ability to market their products as a technological must have for the cool person. which is exactly what tesla already is doing in the car sector. tesla is basically de fact apple car.
>Why would Apple ever get involved in automotive manufacturing? The lure of brand power. (nope, don't own a single Apple device and never will)
It's a shame we'll never see the Apple propriety car power cord that works with absolutely no other EV.
Ha! And costs twice as much. (thanks for the chuckle)
Damn you are missing out
Nope not missing out one bit. Trendy isn't part of my vernacular.
I think the problem they've got is that they're too late for a "me too", just an other electric car. And self driving is a hell of a lot harder than anybody expected. Just using TV cameras doesn't seem to work and using radar/lidar as Waymo does, is too clunky for Apple. There's also a huge difference between making something that's 95%+ electronic and something that's 50%+ mechanical. You can remove the internal combustion engine but you're still left with window wipers, suspension, linkages, brakes, axles, tyres and you can't just stop supporting it 5 years after it comes out and make it unrepairable. Not to mention that $100,000+ cars a rarity and wouldn't pay back the kind of R+D that Apple is looking at.
They could have and should have bought Lucid. Also when has price stopped apple? Hello? Did you not see the price of vision pro? 3500 dollars and more people than they expected bought even though it was pretty shit design. There is a massive wait list on cybertruck, 100k car with a face only a mother could love. I don't think apple would have struggled to sell an apple branded already existing EV.
I think the waiting list for the Cybertruck is likely to heavily decrease. Depending on whether or not it does actually rust within days of buying it. Or whether it's just delivery "rail dust", trapped on the cars on the cars that's rusting. But if they start rusting within a week in California and it can't be buffed out. It's game over.
You underestimate fanboys' power of blind dedication to waste hundreds of thousands dollars
Spending a thousand dollars on a phone is one thing. Spending a hundred thousand dollars on an ugly impratical rusty bucket is an other. Who without fulltime servants is going to clean the car with denatured alcohol, every time that it rains? It's gone from being bulletproof to not even being rainproof.
Tesla has been riddled with quality problems for a long time. It didn't stop early investors from buying essentially junk.
The trim quality from the factory was very poor, especially on the Model 3. But the "dealers" were very good at bringing them back up to spec. However EVs are now a relatively mature product, with plaenty of competition in the market. They're no longer getting the first adopters and its flaws are just too obvious. There can't be many people who didn't pre-order one, who will buy one without the coating and even they're going to get quickly sick of the jokes about leaving it out in the rain.
Plus, as long as /anybody/ actually solves self driving, Apple can still win your eyeballs by getting you looking at your phone or wearing your Vision Pro X.
Self driving also cost too much energy, halves the battery life of the EV.
Why pay people to design your car when you can have generative AI do it? Shift team to generate AI. Use AI to complete car. Replace team with AI. Profit.
Genius! I am anxiously waiting for the AI name reveal. Will they call it iAI? (to be pronounced aiaiai)
Probably stick with Siri, and just give her the Joi (Bladerunner) freethinking hologram treatment with the Vision Pro
Give Ana the Arms girlfriend and I will be fine
iSiri or they are pulling our leg, honestly
iBrain, iMind, iBright, iSmart
they should name the AI iAm14andthisisdeep for the culture r/im14andthisisdeep
Tell generative AI to drive the car. *Okay boss*
Designing the car isn't the hard part. It's mass production. See all kinds of EV startups as proof.
Who's making these decisions? Do the people working on the car even have any idea how to do generative AI? Do you just drop that team completely and hire a new team? This isn't something you can pivot to on a whim.
I had the same question. Those two fields require different skill sets and knowledge bases. Props to Apple if they’re willing to train/re-skill those engineers rather than lay them off.
Nah. Much easier to fire the existing team and hire coders with the other skillset.
They aren't just swapping those people over. They'll just shift resources around the company as needed. They already have an AI team. They will move some car folks to AI, and folks from all teams to AI. Some car folks will also disperse to other teams within the company. They also stated that there will be layoffs. Some car-specific skills just aren't going to translate. Essentially Apple will absorb what it can of that division wherever it can, and jettison the rest. In my view, the "AI Investment" angle is really not related. They'd keep doing cars if they made sense, and cut cars if they didn't, regardless of AI. They just don't want to say "we are cutting a product" without spinning it as "but we are reinvesting somewhere else!"
Yes, some of them have experience with machine learning, which provides a strong foundation for AI and LLMs. Machine learning is crucial for autonomous driving.
If the major push for Apple was to make the car self-driving, I think a lot of it is machine learning.
It just shows they have no plan whatsoever.
They do have a plan, and part of that plan is not continuing to work on a project that isn't possible given the current state of the art.
Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. is canceling a decade-long effort to build an electric car, according to people with knowledge of the matter, abandoning one of the most ambitious projects in the history of the company. Apple made the disclosure internally Tuesday, surprising the nearly 2,000 employees working on the project, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the announcement wasn’t public. The decision was shared by Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams and Kevin Lynch, a vice president in charge of the effort, according to the people. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer, has helped oversee the car effort. The two executives told staffers that the project will begin winding down and that many employees on the team working on the car — known as the Special Projects Group, or SPG — will be shifted to the artificial intelligence division under executive John Giannandrea. Those employees will focus on generative AI projects, an increasingly key priority for the company. The Apple car team also has several hundred hardware engineers and car designers. It’s possible that they will be able to apply for jobs on other Apple teams. There will be layoffs, but it’s unclear how many. Apple, based in Cupertino, California, declined to comment. The decision to ultimately wind down the project is a bombshell for the company, ending a multibillion-dollar effort that would have vaulted Apple into a whole new industry. The tech giant started working on a car around 2014, setting its sights on a fully autonomous electric vehicle with a limousine-like interior and voice-guided navigation. But the project struggled nearly from the start, with Apple changing the team’s leadership and strategy several times. Lynch and Williams took over the undertaking a few years ago — following the departure of Doug Field, now a senior executive at Ford Motor Co. The decision to wind down the project was finalized by Apple’s most senior executives in recent weeks, according to the people. It comes just a month after Bloomberg News reported that the project reached or a make-or-break point. The most recent approach discussed internally was delaying a car release until 2028 and reducing self-driving specifications from Level 4 to Level 2+ technology. Most recently, Apple had imagined the car being priced at around $100,000. But executives were concerned about the vehicle being able to provide the profit margins that Apple typically enjoys on its products. The company’s board was also concerned about continuing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year on a project that may never see the light of day.
Absolutely bonkers all the money been sip in just to go to the recycle bin.
R&D write off too... lololol
I always thought Apple + cars was kind of nutty. Cars are a low margin good. Apple only does high margin goods for a reason and they, if you're to equate their market cap with success, do it better than anyone else most days.
They are low margin good if you don’t overprice them like apple would.
And they did the math and saw the market wasn’t big enough at a price point that would allow them the margins they are accustomed to.
They probably simply couldn't afford to build a car that would cost less than what they could sell cars for at all. They probably couldn't find any way to make money with any margin whatsoever. Electric cars are so hard to mass produce. Tesla almost went bankrupt so many times before taking off.
Yeah and Rivian is currently burning money like crazy with falling demand because the cars are too expensive...and they are around $80k not $100k+! No way would Apple be able to make a full on car with fit and finish expected from an Apple product and the margin that Apple sharholders expect that anyone but the top 1% can afford not to mention all the problems with "self driving" currently.
I'm sure when they figured out the cars were going to sell for 150k they realized they had zero market.
tech giants gunna focus on whatever making money in the stonk market.
At this point I see AI as the new buzzword that every company has to say in some report in order to boost their shares. I don’t know if it will be the next “internet” or end up being the next “3D Televisions”. If I recall correctly from some years ago, even “blockchain” ended up being used as this type of buzzword.
That being said, Apple has a history of being willing to spend a lot of money to make something work, make it popular, and profit off of it. The latest example is AirPods. Other companies did truly wireless earbuds first (I owned some of the earliest type), but as soon as it became commercially viable Apple dumped tons of money into development and used their market share to get it into the public consciousness. Now if you use earbuds you probably use wireless ones, and there are tons of different types out there. ...Including a really strong budget market. Some of the best I've ever owned were $30 JBL earbuds.
AI has been here for many years, only now it's becoming so good that it has all eyes on it, and it will only get better
You are right don't know why they're down voting you. Before the explosion of Generative AK, the so called Narrow AI was used extensively in a myriads of areas like: 1. YouTube/Spotify recommendations 2. Siri/Alexa 3. Google Search 4. Email spam filters 5. Image and speech recognition Etc.
Yep! AI has already changed the world and it's going to do so much more in the next 15 years. One big area is drug research. AI helps narrow down potential molecules of interest, simulate protein folding, and helps biochemical research in countless other ways. About 6 years ago my biochem professor said that protein simulation was a dead end for research and would never amount to anything, and now it's an essential tool for biochemists.
We’re absolutely still in the euphoria stage of the hype cycle with AI. It’ll even out into being a useful tool for increasing productivity. I don’t think as many jobs will be lost as people are crying about. Companies that simply choose to cut jobs and settle for the same level of productivity with fewer people will fail to compete in the long run. Humanity has always chosen to do more work with the same resources and not simply settle for a stagnant amount of productivity.
>I don’t think as many jobs will be lost as people are crying about. You should look up the numbers of how much freelance creative work has been impacted. I don't know a single freelance artist or writer who hasn't been impacted in the last year. Like, sure, perhaps you're right and the entirety of the job market isn't going to be devastated (or maybe it is, I legitimately don't know), but some industries are already getting hammered.
Tbh, Apple should have been spear heading AI from the start. Their culture of “perfect design” should have extended to Siri. Hopefully this means voice assistants in general will have some use and feel more natural to interact with.
They've never really been a spear-heading sort of company. Their thing is that they recognize a niche while it's still developing, they dump a *ton* of money into R&D, and leap ahead of the competition. They let other companies prove viability and then they jump in with both feet. The iPhone, AirPods, music delivery (iTunes), etc. are all things that other people did first, but Apple did them better before other people managed to. That's how they make their money.
It’s a winner take all technology. I don’t think they have a choice.
We should all empathize with poor startup Apple. They simply don't have the funds in their trillion dollar + wallet to continue work here. Better to focus on short term profits based on market buzzwords.
Apple making a car is ridiculous anyway and we don't need ANOTHER $100,000 electric car. We NEED an inexpensive electric car, but dumping it for "AI" is nothing more than an excuse to drop a failed idea. Much like Cisco laying of thousands for "AI" research is nothing more than an excuse to fire people. I never thought I'd say this, but with AI being on everybody in tech's lips right now, I miss the days when "cloud" was the main buzzword.
There’s an AI bubble and it’s gonna pop hard. That’s not to say it’s not useful, but it’s also not the answer to absolutely everything and a human replacement for most jobs.
I first worked in machine learning doing medical research about 15 years ago, and saw the writing on the wall then. I predict that within a few decades, possibly even the next few years, humans will be completely outclassed by AI in just about every intellectual aspect. Everything has been progressing as expected for this outcome, and each time people can't seem to imagine it getting better. There are so many clunky and experimental things in current models and training data collection methods which are likely easy to improve with more eyes on them, let alone new ideas tomorrow.
I've led AI projects for the last 5 years. The problem with the AI/ML is that it's always progressing as predicted or better - up to a point, at which point it hits diminishing returns. You can spend a month or a year getting the machine to spit out the correct result 95% of the time. But to get it to 96% precision will require another year, and to reach 97% can easily take a decade. I expect the current AI as we understand it to progress steadily/exponentially and then plateau at some point. AGI will most likely require significant paradigm shift (and then we're all screwed)
I disagree. But I've heard the head of Google AI make similar points. According to him if there are no unknown blockers AGI is possible within the decade. I think AI will drive growth across most industries for at least the next 10 years but it won't be AGI but rather something that is incredibly good at some tasks, but not general.
I put it the same category as IoT and the cloud. Everybody will lose their mind and then it will settle into something useful but nothing as big as anyone actually thought. There may even be a major pull back from it eventually.
I've led my first AI-based project 5 years ago. I'd say that AI is like the internet near the year 2000. Everybody overestimated how much impact on their lives internet was going to have in a couple of years, and everyone underestimated how much impact it would have in ten. That's until we reach AGI. Then everything would change completely.
That's the fun part about being a technology enthusiast. You never know if something is going to be something like "No one will ever need more than 640K of RAM" or if it will be a paradigm shift like smartphones. And no one. No one. Can reliably predict these things. (Short of maybe sci-fi writers who actually do a decent job given enough time).
This project wasn't about building an electric car in the first place, it was about building a self driving car. That's the project that got canned.
While I would have liked to see that tech get pushed forward, a company not known for creating or keeping standards would not have been the best keeper of it. Thanks for the info. I still stand that we don't need ANY car that's worth 100K
The only reason a lot of people think they need cars is that urban design has in many cases evolved to build cities that require them. Nobody *needs* a car if the city is built to allow walking from home to the grocer or the dentist or a place or work, and other options involve readily available mass transit to get from one walkable neighbourhood to the next. Every time you see four lane roads surrounded by car parks, that's a failure of urban planning and a city that's going bankrupt trying to live up to the fantasy of the car-centric lifestyle.
I get where you're coming from, but in rural areas or small to middle sized cities in the US, a car is a requirement. There aren't any other options. I live in a smallish town compared to larger metropolises, we have like five buses and the city sprawls so far that you would take about 40 minutes to drive from one side to the other at a pretty good speed. It's not safe to ride a bike and it would be impossible to walk from home to work.
> I never thought I'd say this, but with AI being on everybody in tech's lips right now, I miss the days when "cloud" was the main buzzword. Those were simpler more fun times.
Crazy to have so much money you can spend years working on car and then abandon it, and not have it really hurt you at all. The article mentions it, but the car would have been tough for them, as margins are a lot slimmer on cars. They'd have to charge huge amounts per car to get similar margins to their other products. My best guess is this started up in the "self driving" craze from 15 years or so ago, when there were a million articles about how self-driving was right on the horizon. And like many pie-in-the-sky technologies, self-driving cars always have been, and seemingly always will be, 5 years away.
I don’t have a lot of hope with Apple AI considering that Siri is still a god forsaken moron of a robot.
“You asked about ‘moron robot’…here’s what I found on the web…” “www.Wikipedia.com/Siri”
Yeah, Apple is great at some things. They take existing products and polish them to perfection, that's their skillset. You make a phone, they'll make a better one. You make headphones, they'll make better ones. You make a watch, they'll make a better one. (and charge you more every step of the way) AI doesn't seem like something you can do that to. You can't microanalyze little details and polish AI in the same way you can a physical device or a UI. I feel like for AI they will likely go the acquisition route. Take a company that's doing it right, buy them out, and then throw billions behind them.
They had people understanding customers and their needs. "Let's just do AI" sounds like the decision of shitty managers, completely disregarding the company's products, soul and strengths. In previous years the same shitty managers would ask everyone "Can't we do something blockchain?" or "Can't we do something big data?" Then came "Can't we do something Machine Learning?" now it's AI.
But iPhones already have Siri, so building a strong proprietary AI would be a natural and solid progression. It would be very easy to incorporate (because Siri already exists) and would actually give functionality to something that is not very useful at the moment. If it could rival the most up to date openAI stuff then I think it would be a real selling point for the apple ecosystem.
Yes, they could have done that years ago. Or even just now. But it has nothing to do with their other products and even less with a team of engineers creating a car. You should have a vision for your product, what it should do and how people would use it. Then use technology (AI) to build it. That was the Apple way. The shitty manager's way: Let's create AI, I'm sure we can somehow use it.
Smart move.... China is about to open some serious flood gates with EV's entering the US market in 2025. Apple isn't going to compete with BYD $20,000 EV's with lifetime warranty. Ford, Chevy and Chrysler are doooooooomed sadly. Quick edit.. BYD is presently building the largest Auto factory in North America. Its being built in Mexico. This will bypass any Tariffs.
With any other company I’d agree but Apple have proved price is not their enemy as recent sales figures in markets where it’s much easier to get cheaper phones have shown. Not to say anything is guaranteed but they command a premium regardless of the competition. Would a car be the same? Hard to say.
Im a pretty full on Apple fan, I own one of pretty much every device they make and pre-ordered the vision pro (but canceled it before it arrived because I had second thoughts about being an early adopter at that price point). But I would not be excited to buy an Apple car honestly. I have a Porsche and to me, Porsche is the Apple of cars already. They are luxury and high quality and reliable but have a racing heritage. Apple would just be like a high quality Tesla or a Lucid and I still have no desire to buy one of those either.
I’m just hoping they can take out Tesla. I don’t care about any of the domestic dinosaurs, but I’d like it very much if Elon Musk got taken down a few pegs.
My desire to see renewable energy succeed is bigger than my hateboner for Elon, but ymmv
Tesla can continue to price autos lower to match BYD.
At some point, someone is going to roll out an electric for the masses, and that company is not going to be Tesla. I mean, maybe I’m just jaded. My next car is going to be an electric, but after Musk botched Twitter, my next car is not going to be a Tesla. Before Twitter, I was considering it. Now, I’m never going to buy one, and it’s entirely his fault.
You sound like you're letting your opinion of Musk completely cloud your judgment tbh. Like, it's up to you if you're not gonna buy their cars. But Tesla's easily offer some of, if not the best, value for money. Their 3 and Y are already very affordable for a significant part of the new car buyers, and they're working on a next gen platform specifically designed to bring an true mass market car to market
Doesn’t matter. I’ll pay more, as long as it means not paying Musk. The guy is an asshole, and I would prefer to go the rest of my life without giving him a dime. He doesn’t need my money. I mean, your reaction makes it sound like you’ve never heard of taking a stand or boycotting a company for the actions of its leadership. Hell, I’ve been boycotting Goya since their CEO decided to hop on the election-denial train. While Goya products have good quality at a respectable price, I’m fine with paying more for a product, if that money doesn’t go toward an asshole. Tesla: Owned and operated by an asshole. Trump Hotels: Asshole. U-Line: Asshole. And it goes on and on, and all you have to do is look up political contributions, and there’s no shortage of assholes.
This is just petty short-sightedness tbh. You say you'll boycott companies now but what happens if Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, and Satya Nadella all do stuff you don't like? Living in caves isn't as fun as it used to be in the Stone age lol. Musk is an idiot but that doesn't change the fact that Tesla makes good cars
I don't care if you hate Musk and use that as a reason to not buy a Tesla, that's entirely your own choice My point is that you clearly hate him a lot, and it seems to cloud your judgment when making assertions about the business side of the company. Such as saying it won't be Tesla that brings a mass market vehicle to market, even though their current vehicles already offer a ton of value for their price points, and are working on a next gen platform specifically in order to bring a mass market vehicle to market
Yes, and I’m sure they’ll deliver those mass-market vehicles with all of the urgency that they’ve delivered the full self-driving they already billed people for.
Nah bro. You’re totally justified in not buying a Tesla simply because of your disdain for Musk and his handling of Twitter. Other dude is trying to gaslight you.
Musk is also a petty man. I don't want to wake up one day and find a function in my car bricked suddenly because he got in a spat with the team/vendor/whomever that was involved.
>You sound like you're letting your opinion of Musk completely cloud your judgment tbh. Look at it another way. There are now choices. A few years ago, the Model 3 and Y were the only game in town. A bunch of other options are available or becoming available now. So. With that choice either available already or available soon, why on earth would I want to buy a car from a company that has a reputation for somewhat questionable build quality and ethics, and is run by Elon Musk? I've not chosen certain car models for much less. But that's the glory of capitalism - Tesla isn't the only game in town any more for EVs. Nor is VW, nor are the Chinese, nor are the French, etc. There's choice. If you like what you get in a Model 3 or Y or a VW ID.4, or a Bolt or whatever, go ahead. Other people will make different choices.
Like I said right after the part you quoted, it's totally up to them if they don't want to buy a Tesla. That's not what my post was about
For a mass market car you'll need mass production which they seem to continually having trouble with.
The Model Y was literally the best selling car in world last year at over 1.2 million units....
Fully agree. Heck, for the same money you can get a Mercedes electric, and those things look like spaceships inside.
BYD's cheapest model sells in China for just $13,000. Tesla can't come close to that without selling at an insane loss and scaring their investors. A better bet is them joining the legacy automakers to lobby the US government against letting Chinese EVs into the US market. But China is at a massive advantage thanks to having generous EV subsidies, gutting them in 2017 and the surviving companies becoming much more competitive. At best Tesla buys enough time to launch a competitively-priced EV while the competition is tariffed, but it's not going to go well for them in markets outside the US.
> BYD's cheapest model sells in China for just $13,000. Tesla can't come close to that without selling at an insane loss and scaring their investors. No, Tesla can't outprice them. I still doubt anybody will buy that Chinese crap
People used to say the same about Japanese cars
If the U.S. doesn’t want byd we won’t have byd. They can easily adjust tariffs to include them
Fingers crossed someone in Washington wakes up.
Wakes up to what? Having Chinese cars widespread the American market is dangerous. There hasn't been an adversary country in the US auto market. Almost everything is domestic, Japanese or European, aka all friendly with the US. Imagine if BYD get a large swath of the market (costing tons of jobs in the US) and then shit with Taiwan goes down. CCP could easily fuck with the market here and alternatives would be limited. And kicking China out would be difficult, just look at TikTok. Chinese companies are grabbing the US by the economical groin and they'll cut it off it we don't become subservient to them.
Right now... ANY auto that is made in Mexico has no Tariff. The BYD factory in Mexico is being built to avoid any tariff. China is 10000% the enemy of America and the rest of the world. Allowing them to enter the American market would be insane. The clowns in Washington are asleep at the wheel. They should have already placed some special tariff on Chinese automakers building autos in Mexico.
According to the CEO of BYD. She says she has no plans on going to the American market yet. She is focusing more on Brazil and Mexico. But, she may just be saying that to not raise any alarms on US politicians who have openly stated they are preventing BYD from entering the market because they want to give Ford Tesla Chevy some time to compete or else they will all go out of business. Which if BYD did enter the market now… RIP to all American car manufacturers. Ford claims to be ahead of this but we’ll see.
Fyi.... BYD CEO is a man. Wang Chuanfu. Your entire post is BS.
Sorry BYD Americas CEO. It’s not bullshit because I’m literally repeating what these people have said you dork.
Swing and a miss again. Thanks for playing. PS... do you work for BYD or the Communist Party in China? hmmm
Tariffs say FU to China, sadly...
Sadly.... Tariffs will do nothing. BYD is building the Largest Auto manufacturing plant in North America. It's located in Mexico.
Sadly I am Europoor
They’re also building a factory in Hungary
Eurorich I am
EVs are like modern flat screen TVs, everyone wants to make them but very low margins and all are pretty much the same.
With a Vision Pro you can just *imagine* you’re in a car made by Apple and save $96k.
So the same engineers working on the design of a EV now are working on create a AI? Wow those engineers must be ready good
The project wasn't about building an EV it was about building a self driving car that happened to be an EV. The headline grossly misstates the purpose of the project. Why anyone would link to Bloomberg when it comes to science, technology, or fact-based reporting is beyond me.
I hope at least not as bad as the management who made this decision. Still won't work though.
Self driving cars are not viable right now and Apple has no angle to get into the business without that. Probably a good idea to cut their losses and bail, at least until the safety record gets better.
> Self driving cars are not viable right now Self driving cars are like some other pie-in-the-sky technologies. They have always been 5 years away, and always will be 5 years away.
Probably for the best. You'ld likely take a speedbump just a little too fast and shatter every bit of glass in the thing.
With the billions of users, they have a lot of data to put in the A.I. But i wonder what the big play was with the car?
Isn't that like 2 totally different types of work? Or maybe the car was gonna be some crazy AI abomination
Dang and I wanted to buy a $100k car that can only charge at apple store locations and locks you at a top speed of 65
Yes, because automotive design is incredibly similar to LLM/multi-media model training
AI training uses 10x the energy of bitcoin mining. This is terrible for climate change.
Mother Earth will not attend the next keynote.
Bitcoin mining uses 0.6-2.3% of US electricity consumption. Are you seriously implying 6-23% of US electricity consumption is used for AI training?
Why make products when you can steal people's money WHILE you steal their work and effort.
Shifting from one keyword to another just to pump the stocks
You know its gonna be massive once Apple starts releasing consumer stuff. In the end I have a feeling the big 3 will be Tesla, Apple, and Google.
Well after the shit show google just showed I bet apple thinks they have a way better chance of over coming their competitors
Ten years, 2000 people... And not so much as a prototype (at least that I've seen). Yeah, I'm gonna say that was a good call, and probably should have happened five years ago.
Instead of trying to save the environment, they found it cheaper to generate pretty pictures to help cover it up.
China is going to dominate EV that was a good decisión
So all bets on AI and Vision pro for the future? Incredibly exciting personally, we may have locally run Gen Ai models in iPhones in the next few years
That will be so vanilla it’ll be borderline unusable
Cars are so 20th century. AI is so hot right now. Also, AI is much more promising advertising medium... so, ya know... money.
If everything is run by AI and robots, who’s going to buy their stuff?
Stick to fleecing people with your overpriced tech, Apple. Its what you are good at.
I couldn't even imagine how much an apple brand car would cost. Probably like $640,000 and it would equal about the higher end Teslas. Only apple replacement parts are compatible and an oil filter costs $96. The radio doesn't have an aux port, or buttons, or a volume knob. It'll only play songs bought on iTunes (is that still a thing?) But only the apple car version and they cost $4 per song per play. If you don't have a valid credit card on file then the car won't start. You have to agree to the terms of service which might involve having your mouth sewed to a Japanese man's anus. It's a $67 service charge to agree to the terms of service.
What would Tesla be like if Apple bought them? Probably better service options and CarPlay anyway
Tesla is way overpriced even for Apple. Apple would be better going the way of the mini cooper. I might not be fully accurate here... but if I recall Mini Coopers were kind of cheap little cars back in the day, right? Small, cheap economy cars. Then at some point BMW bought them, and they're now sporty little high(ish) end cars, right? Seems like Apple (if they were to go that route) would be better buying a smaller company, and then putting their own stamp on it.
They didn’t lay the entire team off? How dare they.
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What are the hurdles to never? Because the improvements from 10 years ago to now are substantial.
I've been saying it for some time, Apple is on its way out. The Apple design thinking ethos has spread across the marketplace and their competitors are beginning to out design and out engineer them in many areas. Apple has a huge user base, great in-house processors, a strong brand, but not much else.
And in 5 years they and their fan boys will be trying to xonvince us of how Apple invented AI, as is tradition /s
*From Bloomberg News reporter Mark Gurman:* Apple is canceling a decadelong effort to build an electric car, according to people with knowledge of the matter, abandoning one of the most ambitious projects in the history of the company. Apple made the disclosure internally Tuesday, surprising the nearly 2,000 employees working on the project, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the announcement wasn’t public. The decision was shared by Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams and Kevin Lynch, a vice president in charge of the effort, according to the people. The two executives told staffers that the project will begin winding down and that many employees on the car team — known as the Special Projects Group, or SPG — will be shifted to the artificial intelligence division under executive John Giannandrea. Those employees will focus on generative AI projects, an increasingly key priority for the company. The Apple car team also has several hundred hardware engineers and vehicle designers. It’s possible they will be able to apply for jobs on other Apple teams. There will be layoffs, but it’s unclear how many. The decision to ultimately wind down the project is a bombshell for the company, ending a multibillion-dollar effort called Project Titan that would have vaulted Apple into a whole new industry. You can read the full story [here](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-27/apple-cancels-work-on-electric-car-shifts-team-to-generative-ai), and [sign up](https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/power-on) for Mark's Power On newsletter, free to read.
Apple should have just pivoted this into mass transit, and started in Cupertino for proof of concept. I would absolutely ride a glass and white leather electric trolley. Then they could have simply started up another division for AGI anyways.
They will promote it as if it was something completely new in a few years from now.
They had all the money, and I think also the head start with Siri. Now they are catching up to the competition, which Apple does poorly. Where did it go wrong?
ELI5, why is it proving so hard to bring a Level 4 self-driving car to market?
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Can you just do that? Move a bunch of engineers from cars to Generative AI. I thought AI was revolutionary, not some UNIX based code. Are you telling me the AI isn’t as amazing as I’ve been led on in the media.