The lukewarm response to Vision Pro must have spooked them. Can't take multiple failures in short periods, I guess.
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Apple Cancels Electric Car Project
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The watch was already in the roadmap when Steve passed. As of now, Tim's legacy is the Vision Pro.
Apple doesn’t have battery tech, too late to catch up with vision based autonomous driving system and with margin squeezed by Chinese EV brands, it’s not the product for Apple. Perhaps if it had a product 6 years ago, they’ve missed it on the timeline. Good, put all that money into things Apple is good at.
EVs are massively more efficient than ICEVs.
They are green. Yes, it takes more energy to produce them initially but, because of their efficiency, it only takes about 12K miles to pay off the energy investment and start to use less energy.
Electricity production is greener than burning gasoline. With an EV, even if you are running from a power grid that is 100% coal, it still is only responsible for about the same CO2 as a 50mpg ICEV. Very, very few power grids are that dirty. The average US power grid uses less than 18% coal and that number is dropping every year.
A lot of EVs have ranges around 300 miles. That is about what our gas powered vehicle gets. The better EVs can top off the battery from 10% to 80% in about 20 minutes. Newer battery chemistries promise faster charges. Most EV drivers can just plug in at home and are fully charged every day. The fast charging is mainly useful on road trips. That charging network still has some holes but is building out rapidly.
But can Tim double down? This is the milk squeezer. We dabble in stuff and maybe keep dabbling away. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t. But the main plan is squeezing iPhone and company for all she’s got.
I can hear Tim now to the iPhone group. We need warp 10 now to beat estimates.
I’m giving it all she’s got Timmy. Chinas giving us problems again.
Well we need it now. Do a new color if you have to. And stop calling me Timmy.
Why? A car was always a long shot and the return on investment did not seem very big. It’s probably for the best that they drop that money pit and can focus resources on more useful products.
You can’t even begin to compare the environmental cost of battery production to the massive environmental cost of oil extractions, processing, and burning. The impacts of battery production are relatively small scale and localized. Oil is an enormous industry and we are only now coming to grips with the environmental impact from that.
Good. The project would have been a big departure from Apple’s core. I think they feel pretty confident they will own the VR/AR market which will provide enough revenue to support growth with a stagnant/declining iPhone market.
I think the car project was more of an unfocused search for the next revenue growth driver than a concentrated effort on disrupting an industry - at least after Tesla’s success in the space. When Apple embarked on the car project, Tesla was nothing: they didn’t have a mass market car, they didn’t own the charging space, they didn’t have self driving capabilities, quality sucked, company was losing money. All of that changed during Apple’s car project. Apple was simply too late, Tesla won and this decision to cancel the car project further solidifies Tesla’s position as the Apple of the car market.
I think the car project was more of an unfocused search for the next revenue growth driver than a concentrated effort on disrupting an industry - at least after Tesla’s success in the space. When Apple embarked on the car project, Tesla was nothing: they didn’t have a mass market car, they didn’t own the charging space, they didn’t have self driving capabilities, quality sucked, company was losing money. All of that changed during Apple’s car project. Apple was simply too late, Tesla won and this decision to cancel the car project further solidifies Tesla’s position as the Apple of the car market.
The way to fix that is to sell them without batteries. You get a used one from the dealer when you buy your car and then it's just like swapping propane tanks on a grill after that. It would also help with the resell value because the car would not take a hit for a diminished battery and you could just roll your deposit / battery core charge into a battery for your new car.
If an e car was magic I have a few clients who lost their tail on such stocks. Lucid comes to mind. lol.
Streaming videos was another hot item when Apple announced. Now they make too much content with most having problems. Netflix solved temp with ads but the same problem will creep back.
Now it’s AI. Except nvidia is the only one showing any growth from it selling chips. This will go boom later. It’s not like Apple is selling chips to others. But the market hears AI and that should soothe them for a bit.
Chasing unicorns. Why wasn’t Siri a priority all along? Nvidia and ChatGPT flew right by Apple.
I like the headset if it can be refined and Apple doubles down on content. This remains to be seen. Because Apple doesn’t exactly double down on things.
Back to basics. Apple is iPhone. Leverage it. Extend the system. Mac is 10-15% at most of pc market. Get that iPhone fold going. None of this is growth territory it’s just squeezing things. Squeeze harder.
I mean seriously we’re hearing iPad on a HomePod rumors. Really Tim?
I think you are making an incorrect assumption as far as most people being able to use a 4-5kw charger.
I suppose that I could get a 1000+ ft extension cord and put if from my apartment window down to the parking lot
.Enhancing the iPhone is likely to be the point of Apple’s push into AI. Making complex operations simpler. Making it easier to use the features of the phone And get better results out. Doing a straight up ChatGPT clone does not seem like something Apple would care to do.
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Should have happened 10 years ago instead of wasting those resources, iOS has been suffering
67% of Americans live in homes that they own. Apartment are a smaller group. If we could get those homeowners to adopt and EV that would be a big improvement. That gives us more time to work on access to charging for those in apartments.I think you are making an incorrect assumption as far as most people being able to use a 4-5kw charger.
I suppose that I could get a 1000+ ft extension cord and put if from my apartment window down to the parking lot
I was going to post this same thing but thought better of it. That said, I completely agree. Plus, it appears to me that they used a lot of the R&D from the car project in the headset already. No reason to double down on that.
I literally said this recently in other post that I think Apple is no longer designing a car, but they want to implement better CarPlay functionality into cars and possibly even their in-house chips to power some functions in cars kind of how NVIDIA powers some cars important systems.
Did Apple ever officially announce they were developing a car?
When that time comes (which doesn’t appear to be in the next 10 years) we can have that conversation.
You’re putting your faith in legislators to predict the future of battery tech? I really hope you don’t invest that way.
ICE will be here in 2030. Likely more efficient, but it will still be 75% if the market. Maybe by 2040, we’ll finally have hydrogen vehicles.
Well they officially announced to their employees that they’ve stopped developing one, so…
That 67% of “homeowners” includes people who own/live in an apartment….
Maybe you mean 66% of Americans have a garage or carport?
You seem to be under the impression that we have the luxury to leapfrog a couple of tech cycles to switch to the perfect transportation vehicle. Read the climate reports. We don’t. We’re still driving cars with century old tech. Time to move on. Even if batteries are not perfect.
Because
They created the single market and free movement of people, brought peace for over 75 years, just voted for the nature restoration act, gave us free roaming, introduced the most stringent privacy laws in the world, … the list is endless. Seems like you’re describing one of the 2 parties in the US.