Conceived more than a decade ago promising a total self-drive experience, the Apple Car has gone through a tough gestation.
The EV market has changed dramatically in that time: Tesla was just getting going and the Chinese were building poor copies of European prestige models, with underpowered engines and comedy suspension set ups.
Today they lead the world.
But Apple says the car is still coming…
There was quite a lot of excitement back in 2014 when rumours started swirling about an Apple Car. It was exciting: the company that had invented the digital personal music player, transformed the cell phone market, introduced us to the idea of an app and invented the tablet, which it turned out everyone wanted, was now looking at personal transport.
Ten years ago we were all still a little sceptical about electric cars, though Elon Musk was making swift inroads, promising us that in the near future our cars were going to be taking care of the journey, leaving us to read, browse the internet or watch TV as we headed to work. And that was probably why Apple revealed its interest.
Anyway, this week Apple has admitted a delay to its car building…again. It has reportedly also scaled back its autonomous driving aspirations…again. According to a widely published report by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman the company’s decade-old vehicle project has pivoted from planning a fully self-driving car to an EV, more like today’s Teslas (which can self-drive). But the earliest it will launch will be 2028.
According to Car & Driver “Apple’s ambitious plan to build a fully autonomous (i.e. self-driving) electric car dates back to 2014 when rumors first started to swirl. Fast forward about 10 years to the present day and we’ve yet to see so much as a prototype. If Apple does ever get around to building an EV, it will likely be a lot different than what was originally envisioned.”
There is no doubt at all that if Apple launched an electric vehicle, it would succeed.
The millions of ‘Apple FanBoys’ may have been in decline over the past few years (those clever Samsung folding phone screens are not for you Apple buyers) as the company has failed to find a product that has emulated the success of its original iPhone, iPad, iPod and even the Apple Watch, now in its ninth version and ninth year on sale.
Tweaks each year and the slow obsolescence of older versions has kept the company in front (only overtaken by Microsoft as the world’s biggest company last month) but there’s been no ‘I can’t live without that’ product reaction from Apple buyers for a few years.
The announcement of the Apple Car looked a sure-fire winner in the EV sector when it was first revealed in 2014. Elon Musk was a couple of years into his first saloon and not everyone was yet on board.
Interestingly, the EV successes have often been from start-up style manufacturers – disruptors, who adapt faster than traditional car makers. Electric cars have half the parts of their internal-combustion-engined counterparts, follow a simple fundamental design and drive system and, so long as you can secure the batteries, as the Chinese have proven, you can get to market.
Today, the successful EVs are really just electric versions of their former ICE ancestors: passengers sit in the same place, it has a steering wheel, foot pedal for brakes… you get the idea. The future of personal transport is going to be different.
So, perhaps Apple’s wait has been deliberate. People need to become used to alternative power, move away from the idea of the traditional car of the 20th Century, which after all evolved from the horse and carriage and within a century faced extinction because of pollution.
Bloomberg’s report also claim that Apple still wants to allow the car’s self-driving system to be upgraded from Level 2 to Level 4 (Level 5 is totally autonomous) sometime after the initial launch. “Obviously, the company needs to focus on actually building the EV first before worrying about what features it wants to offer in the future,” said Car & Driver.
Tesla has prepared the market for autonomous cars, we’re not there yet, there’ve been a few widely reported ‘incidents’ but it will happen. Scientists say despite the widely reported accidents, self-drive cars are safer. But getting governments to accept one death on the road from am autonomous car is better than 100 (or whatever the ratio is) caused by distracted/tired/stupid human drivers. It WILL come. (And interestingly, once it arrives and is accepted, car fans warn we’ll all be forced to use it).
The personal transport market needs to mature. It needs to be renewable and environmentally friendly. We need to discover whether electric really is the long-term future of transport or will it be a dead-end because boffins failed to find cheaper, easier to produce and longer-lasting batteries? If hydrogen power is the future, you may want to wait a little longer. Today, a lot of EVs are big, heavy, luxurious, expensive… is that really the future?
Apple is a premium product (still, just) so it is likely it will want its Car to be a premium product. By 2028 it’ll know what the public is buying and what consumers want.
So, while Apple fans may have to wait, it seems Apple’s decision won’t have any repercussions: It has confirmed it’s still in the personal transport sector. It has confirmed it will build a car, eventually – 2028 is far enough away to stop people trying to put down deposits, but close enough that buyers will remember their beloved Apple was always working towards a solution.
