Apple Cancels Electric Car Project

[djc6]

The only thing that makes me uncomfortable about EVs are the extreme cost of replacement batteries. Three coworkers I know have had battery replaced shortly after purchase - a Tesla model 3, a Chevy Bolt, and a Kia Niro EV. They all had to wait an eternity for replacement battery, first because of parts availability and second because so few technicians are factory trained to perform the surgery. Only one of them got a loaner car and it was only after lots of complaining. The Chevy guy was without his car for 1.5 years!!

Additionally, I don't like buying things that depreciate in value, so I keep cars forever. I tend to buy a used car, then keep it until its 15+ years from its original in-service date. My Mazda SUV is currently 14 years old with 164K miles and shows no signs of stopping. I like that I can get parts at AutoZone, I can do a lot of the repairs myself, and it doesn't need anything in the way of proprietary tools or software to fix.

Additionally, after watching Rich Rebuilds, Sandy Munro, Louis Rossmann, etc.. I don't like that Tesla is openly hostile to right to repair, and their designs make the car completely unrepairable - example gigacasting making the car a complete loss in an accident, or by making the battery pack completely unrepairable by making it a structural member of the car. These are throw away cars! This also makes them much more expensive to insure than my old Mazda, which is just wasted money! I'm very much in the right to repair camp - I like the satisfaction I get from fixing something, and its better for environment than just constantly throwing things away.

Yes EV have less maintenance requirements, but they still require repairs to keep them well past their warranty period.

 

[AF_APPLETALK]

The only interesting thing to do with cars now is self-driving, and that's pretty far outside of Apple's expertise.

It's unfortunate that Apple failed to solve this hard problem, but at least Waymo continues to push forward.

Hydrogen fusion would have me interested in newer cars, and that's about it. I feel plenty satisfied with the basic lane guidance and auto-pacing cruise control features I already have.

I know I might not be in the majority, but I kind of like driving and being connected with the road.

 

[AF_APPLETALK]

This car project always felt questionable/confused with CarPlay to me.

Hopefully they repackage some of their inventions into CarPlay over time.

 

[Victor Mortimer]

View attachment 2353635

At a recent [not really, this is from decades ago, but still relevant] computer exposition, Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated: “If General Motors had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.”

In response to Bill’s comments, GM issued a press release stating: “If General Motors had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason, you would simply accept this.
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive – but would run on only five percent of the roads.
6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single “General Protection Fault” warning light.
7. The airbag system would ask “Are you sure?” before deploying.
8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
9. Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
10. You’d have to press the “Start” button to turn the engine off.

Oldie but goodie.

 

[t0rqx]

They lost courage to continue...not the Apple I know.

 

[DownUnderDan]

I believe precisely none of this. Apple has decided to pretend to cancel the product to buy themselves more time. There is no way in hell they cancel this. No way, José.

Millions they invested? Their investment in Chinese ride-sharing company Didi Chuxing was $1B by itself. Apple have invested many billions of dollars into this and will continue to do so as they refine their self-driving software and street mapping systems.

I'm sure internally it's been renamed project Pippin.

 

[QCassidy352]

too bad, but honestly this space is pretty well covered.

 

[PTVMan]

Good call. Electric cars need to go bye bye.

Why do electric cars need to “go bye bye”? Millions of people around the world have electric cars and love the technology.

 

[timswim78]

As much as I like Apple products, I am glad that the car was cancelled. I cannot see their business model as being beneficial for consumers in the automobile market.

 

[Biro]

They lost courage to continue...not the Apple I know.

Or… the project really isn’t viable.

 

[StellarVixen]

If I remember correctly, it wasnt just going to be another electric car, it was going to be a driverless electric car (driverless by design).

Problem is that driverless car tech has hit the wall pretty much

 

[cocoua]

Apple Car Prices:

-Base model with 1 front seat, 2 rear , 2 doors+hatch trunk.
Colors: green windmill, blue triton, orange pomelo, yellow firstsunray.
59.000 USD

-Pro model with 2 front seats, 3 rear, 5 doors
-Colors silver cloud and deep-well black.
199.000 USD

UPGRADES
steer wheel 3.900 USD

 

[Victor Mortimer]

I'm sorry but you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Both production AP and FSD Beta work in the rain.

Sure, works fine. Disconnects just before it kills the pedestrian, that way it's officially your fault.

Oh, sorry about the rain comment implying that's the only time it doesn't work. It doesn't work on clear days either.

 

[dontwalkhand]

Good! I don’t know why ANYONE thought a provider of consumer electronics would suddenly be successful at making cars???

They would be stupidly expensive, completely locked to Apple’s ecosystem and probably worse at basic car things than cars from companies that actually specialize in making cars. And maintenance and repairs would only happen at specialized Apple stores and be also stupidly expensive. It sounds like the worst product. I don’t know why anyone was interested in this. All so CarPlay can work a bit better for you?! Really???

Yes I get it. Tesla. But that was still a company dedicated to making cars. And not simply trying to create a bigger platform for their services which is all that Apple Car would be about.

Everyone assumed because it was Apple they could just make it work (if Google or Microsoft had suggested something similar everyone here would have laughed their asses off). Sometimes a bad idea is just a bad idea even if it comes from Apple.

I am happy to hear this announcement, because it means Apple can focus on CarPlay, and make sure that it continues to be available for every car.

You know, the second Apple makes a car, CarPlay as we know it would slowly deprecate over time, to the point where they forget about it and stop caring about it, or they won't update it for many years at a time.

 

[rp2011]

tires, break pads, recalls, cars accidents, fatalities, repos, on and on... Apple just dodged a bullet. A lot smarter shipping little boxes with high margins than the headache that building and servicing and liabilities that cars entail.

 

[BGPL]

I bet they'll make millions selling technology and patents. Not a complete loss at all.

 

[macduke]

What sucks is I was finally getting to the age and financial situation in my life where I might be able to actually afford an Apple Car. Was thinking about buying one around 2030 when my house is paid off and they've worked out the kinks over a few years.

I really want a Rivian R1S but they don't support CarPlay. Maybe now that Apple has cancelled the car, more manufacturers will implement CarPlay and especially CarPlay 2, or whatever it's called, that is more fully integrated without fear of competition.

 

[alexandr]

What, no more upside down charging and wheels sold separately jokes??

 

[orbital~debris]

I would have loved to have seen what Apple would have brought to the car industry.

Not for self-driving elements, but for aspects including:

• the design of the interior
• materials use
• lighting technologies (interior and exterior)
• onboard audio systems, and video systems
• satisfying & responsive controls for in-cabin features
• integration with the gamut of existing and future Apple devices/software
• potential for an integrated onboard computer, including voice assistance
• interesting and helpful sensors (motion, safety, health amongst others)
• camera technology
• heads-up displays (drawing from VisionOS)
• entertainment (displays) and environment capabilities (ambient sound & lighting features)

Even down to how they'd showroom them, sell them, allow customers to configure them, and deliver them.

I hope that some/plenty of what they've learned from such a long-running project makes its way into excellent future products.

 

[CoreForce]

Ok, fine.

Now please bring us the 27" iMac M3.

 

[JoeG4]

Apple Car Prices:

-Base model with 1 front seat, 2 rear , 2 doors+hatch trunk.
Colors: green windmill, blue triton, orange pomelo, yellow firstsunray.
59.000 USD

-Pro model with 2 front seats, 3 rear, 5 doors
-Colors silver cloud and deep-well black.
199.000 USD

UPGRADES
steer wheel 3.900 USD

* Apple Car is a convertible. Just like a Jeep Wrangler it offers a ragtop or a hard top. It comes with neither. The ragtop is $7,999 and the hard top attaches with chrome connectors and costs $29,999.

* Use of the Apple Car requires an iPhone or Apple Vision Pro running the latest version of the OS. If a new update comes out and your car automatically downloads the update, you won't be able to use the car until you update your phone.

* Family Sharing is enabled by default. You can share your Apple Car with up to 5 family members. Doing so also requires you to give full access to your Apple Card and other banking methods. Don't feel comfortable with that? Tell them to buy their own Apple Car!

* If you don't have an iCloud subscription your car will nag you every time you turn it on

I think the thing we all missed out on was, the car would be no better than a Honda Civic and it would cost like a Ferrari.

 

[cheesygrin]

It always annoyed me that Apple tried to take this on in the first place. Something like a car is so far outside of Apple's market, and such a huge undertaking, it was always going to be a near impossible task. You can't put someone with experience of making watches in charge of making a car and expect it to go well.

If Apple really wanted to make a dent in the car world, they should have bought Tesla when it was a young company, kept the structure of it, and just influenced the financing and the bits of technology they were already experts in. Starting from scratch was a bad idea.

 

[seek3r]

Of course they're green. Electricity can be generated off of any energy source, including renewables, so it's green.

Not to mention even when using dirtier power sources centralized power generation is a lot more efficient and easier to control pollution on than hundreds of millions of tiny power plants driving around. Even if every EV was plugged into an exclusively coal or oil powered grid it would still be better than those cars carrying and burning the fuel themselves.

 

[DrV]

The European vehicles are betting on Hybrid for now.

Well, let's have a look at some numbers.

EU BEV sales 2023: 1.5M (14.6 %)
US BEV sales 2023: 1.1M (7.7 %)

True, there are very few PHEVs sold in the US, whereas they are more popular in the EU (0.8M / 7.7 %). The number of BEVs is, however, increasing much faster than that of PHEVs. (Non-plug HEVs are even more popular, but they are not EVs by any criteria.)

As a petrol-head, I'm still hopeful for Hydrogen options as I don't want to be a slave to charging my car. Until then I'm sticking to petrol = Fill and go.

Don't hold your breath. Hydrogen is a low-efficiency fuel requiring expensive hardware. Thus, its widespread use in light-duty vehicles is not and is unlikely to become economically viable. Also, there are many applications where its use is more justified than in light-duty vehicles, and as there will be a shortage of green hydrogen, it is going to be used in those applications.

That "fill and go" transforms into a high-tech effort when you try to fill your tank at 700 bar (atm) pressure (H70 standard) with very small gas molecules having a wide range explosive mixing ratio. The station itself is quite expensive and its capacity is lower than that of a traditional petrol station. A HPC charging station with equivalent capacity (in terms of miles per hour) is much less expensive.

Hydrogen economy will come, but it is quite uncertain if we'll see any of that in traffic. It might be that all transportation will use either electricity or synthetic methane, methanol, ammonia, or diesel-like fuel. Even in that case, air traffic is by far the most difficult application for anything else than synthetic jet fuel. It is possible there will be hydrogen-powered long-haul trucks but they may as well be methane-powered.

 

[DrV]

Not to mention even when using dirtier power sources centralized power generation is a lot more efficient and easier to control pollution on than hundreds of millions of tiny power plants driving around. Even if every EV was plugged into an exclusively coal or oil powered grid it would still be better than those cars carrying and burning the fuel themselves.

An important thing to understand is that electricity generation is the only major power source where we can significantly reduce emissions. Virtually all zero or low-emission primary energy is transformed into electricity. That is why electrification is a must.