Apple really builds a car?
Some time ago, Taiwanese media "Economic Daily" quoted senior supply chain sources as saying that Apple Car will be released in September next year and will be sold globally in 2022.
In fact, rumors about Apple building cars have been constant since Apple began to enter the automotive industry in 2013.
However, according to Apple's past practice, too much information will not be disclosed to the outside world before the product is developed. At this time, news suddenly spread on a large scale that Apple is going to build a car. Maybe Apple Car is really coming.
After all, Tesla, the rise of new Chinese car-making forces, and Amazon's research and development of self-driving cars are all eroding the future smart car market. If Apple Car is not released, it may completely lose this opportunity.
It is well known in the industry that the release of iPhone has completely changed the development of the entire mobile phone industry. With the rise of Apple and the decline of old mobile phone manufacturers such as Nokia, Apple is undoubtedly at the top of technology companies, which has also made everyone mention When you come to Apple, you will associate it with words such as innovation and subversion.
Similarly, some people in the industry view Apple Car as a product that will subvert the entire automotive industry.
But can Apple Car really disrupt the entire industry?
In this regard, Volkswagen CEO Zhang Renjie told Xinzhijia that Apple Car can realize the opening up of the entire ecological chain and the interconnection of various terminals to iCloud. As long as its autonomous driving technology reaches L3 or above, it will be basically invincible.
However, Guo Jishun, director of the GAC Research Institute, does not agree with the statement that Apple Car will subvert the entire automobile industry chain. He believes that the core of a car built by Apple is similar to Tesla and new car-making forces, or is it a completely new car? We have to wait until the specific product form is released to determine the species. It is too early to say who will be subverted now.
In addition, he also said that it is not difficult for Apple to build an ordinary electric car with a score of 60-70 points. What is difficult is that the Apple car must have disruptive technology or a unique user experience. After all, Apple’s The brand is here, just a product with 60 points, which is obviously not enough for Apple.
At present, the entire product form of Apple Car has not been announced, and we have no way of judging its true performance. It is undeniable that Apple’s ability to define automotive digitalization is far stronger than that of most traditional car companies.
However, building a car is not difficult, but for Apple, it is not easy to build a good car and a car that is enough to subvert the industry.
On the one hand, although a car can be regarded as a large-scale consumer electronics, it is still different from mobile phone products. After all, the particularity of the driving scene inevitably requires persistence in safety issues.
On the other hand, regarding Apple’s most imaginative L4-level autonomous driving, Waymo is currently the first to deploy autonomous driving in the world. As of now, its L4-level and above autonomous driving has not yet been fully implemented. application, then Apple’s self-driving test mileage is much lower than Waymo’s. Whether it is truly competitive remains to be discussed.
Based on this, from the perspective of Xinzhijia, Apple has the ability to define the digitalization of automobiles, but there will certainly be many pitfalls for Apple to take in building cars.
Once Apple really launches a new car, what we hope is that it can bring some new ideas, new technologies, new concepts and new product forms to the industry.
Behind Apple's car-making
The history of Apple's car-making can be traced back to the Steve Jobs period. But it wasn’t until 2013, when Apple officially launched the iOS in the car plan, that it truly began to lay out the automotive industry.
It is rumored that Apple has been building cars for seven or eight years. During this period, there have been many internal debates about car building at Apple, and the car-building route has even deviated.
The original main goal of Project Titan was to build a car that would disrupt the industry. However, due to internal divisions, Apple seemed to abandon the project of building a complete car and instead develop car software.
In an interview in June 2017, Cook admitted for the first time that Apple was developing its own autonomous driving system. He said: "I think software will become an increasingly important component of cars in the future, and autonomous driving will also become more important. Apple Focusing on the autonomous driving system, this is a very important core technology and may be one of the most difficult artificial intelligence projects Apple has undertaken.”
Until 2018, Apple confirmed to the outside that Tesla Chief Automotive Engineer Doug Field had already completed the project. He was poached back. Previously, Doug Field was the vice president of the Mac hardware department. His return to Apple is seen by the outside world as a sign of the resurgence of Apple's car-making project.
Although Apple has not released its specific layout in the automobile industry, whether it is the related patents it has continuously released to the outside world or the continuous poaching of relevant talents from other companies, it shows that Apple’s research on automobiles has never stopped. Never stopped. In terms of
patents, media statistics show that Apple has obtained more than 30 patents in the automotive field in 2019. As of December 2020, Apple has obtained nearly 40 patents. These patents mainly involve autonomous driving, AR navigation, in-vehicle VR, and in-vehicle VR. In-house payment, biometric identification, smart hardware, in-car interaction, virtual rearview mirror and other fields.
In terms of talent, Apple is committed to poaching from major companies, especially Tesla. Its director of autonomous driving hardware, Jonathan Sive, was previously the head of vehicle hardware engineering at Waymo and also the head of hardware engineering at Tesla.
In 2018, Doug Field, Tesla’s senior vice president of R&D and manufacturing, returned to Apple and served as vice president of SPG. In March 2019, Dr. Michael Schwekutsch, Tesla’s vice president of electric drive systems, joined Apple as a senior director of SPG. In July 2019, Steve MacManus, Tesla’s vice president of R&D for interior and exterior decoration, defected to Doug Field as SPG’s senior director.
In addition to poaching Tesla talents, Taiwan media reports also stated that Apple directly uses Tesla’s supply chain in Taiwan to build cars. According to the media, some Tesla suppliers in Taiwan, including and Companies such as Da, Bizlian-KY, Heqin, and Tomita have all entered Apple's supplier list and received stocking requirements.
It is worth mentioning that after the rumors of Apple building a car came out, Tesla founder and CEO Musk tweeted that during the "darkest moment" of the Model 3 project, he had approached Cook to discuss Apple's acquisition of Tesla. Possibly, the price was one-tenth of today's market value, but Cook declined the meeting. Given Tesla’s current valuation, I don’t know if Cook now regrets rejecting the meeting.
In summary, it is not difficult to see that Apple already has the ability to develop and manufacture complete vehicles, but why has Apple not launched its own car yet?
As mentioned above, Apple has not disclosed the news of its car manufacturing to the outside world. This is because of its long-standing brand tone, that is, if the product is not made well, it will not be promoted to the outside world. But looking back at reality, in recent years, whether it is artificial intelligence, 5G communications, cloud computing, chips and other technologies, the development is not very complete. But if you really want to create a car that is enough to subvert the industry, these are the most basic technologies. .
At this time, it was reported that Apple was about to launch a new car. For Apple itself, it was a manifestation of its eagerness to find the next business growth point. At present, the growth of Apple's mobile phone business has reached its ceiling, and its technological innovation capabilities are becoming increasingly sluggish. From Apple's recent new products, it is difficult for us to see its huge innovation.
At the end of October, Apple released its financial report for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2020. The financial report showed that Apple’s revenue was US$64.698 billion, an increase of 1% compared with the same period last year, and its net profit was US$12.673 billion, a decrease of 8% compared with the same period last year. It is worth noting that Apple’s iPhone business revenue was US$26.444 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 20.7%.
Based on this, it is not difficult to see that Apple urgently needs to find the next business growth point, and the new energy smart car market is undoubtedly the most suitable.
From the perspective of market size, in the Chinese market alone, with favorable policies, it is expected that the sales of new energy vehicles will reach about 20% of total car sales by 2025. This means that even if the overall car sales are not If there is further growth, based on the sales scale of 25.769 million vehicles in 2019, the future market size of new energy vehicles will exceed 5 million vehicles, which is about five times the current size. This is just the Chinese market. Looking around the world, most countries and regions are promoting the development of new energy vehicles. The size of this market will increase multiple times.
However, there is already a leader in the market, and the expansion momentum is very strong, that is Tesla and the new Chinese car manufacturing forces. Tesla’s current market value exceeds that of Toyota and Volkswagen combined, and NIO’s market value once exceeded that of the BMW Group. In addition, foreign technology giants such as Google and Amazon have in-depth plans in the field of autonomous driving and have achieved results, which undoubtedly puts huge pressure on Apple.
Based on this, when the wave of smart cars is launched around the world, a considerable number of companies have already established a foothold in this market. If Apple does not enter this industry, it may completely lose the opportunity.
As for Apple’s car, what the industry is looking forward to is a product that can subvert the entire industry. Based on Apple’s current strength, the Apple car we are looking forward to will be an Apple car with L4 or above autonomous driving capabilities. Interaction, in-car software can easily control car hardware, such as air conditioning, seats, window opening, closing, AR HUD, etc. for highly intelligent cars.
Compared with other technology companies, Apple is fully capable of redefining automobile digitalization. On the one hand, Apple has strong hardware capabilities, including self-developed chips, processors, etc., which can support its use of self-developed chips in autonomous driving systems and the same configuration for all terminals.
On the other hand, based on Apple's iOS operating system, it can be said that it can bring unlimited imagination to cars. At present, most of the operating systems in cars on the market are developed based on Android or Linux. Compared with its open source nature, Apple's iOS is more closed, and the stability and security of the entire system are superior.
In addition, Apple's most powerful advantage lies in its broad ecological application scenarios. If Apple builds its own car, the ecological applications on Apple's mobile phones can be seamlessly integrated into the car. Moreover, based on Apple's strong mobile phone ecosystem, it is also the only company on the market that hopes to realize the full integration of the closed-loop ecosystem in the car.
Previously, Zhang Renjie once explained the vision of Apple cars to New Smart Driving. In terms of smart cockpits, Apple cars do not need to develop a special in-car screen. They only need to place the iPad in the car and open up the control rights in the car. Control all hardware via iPad. At the same time, since the iPad is replaceable, after the next generation of products is developed, the car's hardware does not need to be replaced, only the iPad can be replaced. He also believes that the scariest thing about Apple is that no manufacturer understands user experience better than Apple.
Will Apple subvert the automotive industry?
There is no doubt that compared to traditional car companies, Apple has advantages in functional design, definition capabilities, artificial intelligence algorithms, chip design, software ecology, and in-depth understanding of human-computer interaction. But can Apple Cars really be able to subvert The entire automotive industry? We can't help but put a question mark first.
On the one hand, although future smart cars can be regarded as a bulk consumer electronics, they are different from mobile phones in that the particularity of their driving scenarios inevitably requires higher safety performance.
Regarding this, Guo Jishun told Xinzhijia that we can develop the car as a large consumer electronics product, but this is not 100% guaranteed. The car itself has its own safety, durability, public safety and other attributes. Apple's software ecosystem has advantages, but its software ecosystem is built together with partners, while Tesla's current software ecosystem is built by itself.
He continued to explain that although a more open software ecosystem will bring more vitality to vehicles, it will also bring more stringent audit requirements for safety-related software ecosystems.For Apple, it is about how to handle the relationship between the diversity of the software ecosystem and the high requirements for security, so that it can not only give full play to its software ecological advantages, but also ensure the rigor and security of the software.
On the other hand, for bulk consumer products such as cars, in addition to the safety and performance of the product itself, the most important point is cost accounting, which requires Apple to strictly enforce supply chain requirements and supply chain strike a balance between costs. To put it bluntly, it is how to make Apple cars more cost-effective. After all, iPhone already represents a market state of industrial design.
Guo Jishun said that a mass consumer product, whether it is a mobile phone or a car, faces a problem. The sales volume of the product is inversely proportional to the unit price cost. The higher the sales volume, the lower the unit price cost, and vice versa. Once Apple Car is launched, if only tens of thousands of units are sold every year, whether this can support its cost is also a question.
Of course, this problem can also be solved, that is, the cars launched by Apple are really disruptive and can make users decide not to buy Tesla, NIO, Xpeng and other products, but to buy Apple cars. Now for Apple cars, the most important question is whether the products it launches are truly disruptive. Without disruptive technology and a unique user experience, Apple cars will also face many problems.
The industry believes that a car product that can subvert the industry must be at least L4 level or above in the field of autonomous driving. However, Apple's current autonomous driving technology does not seem to meet this requirement.
In 2019, according to data released by the California Department of Motor Vehicles, in terms of autonomous driving, General Cruise has a total of 258 cars and 760 drivers; Waymo has 135 cars and 321 drivers; Apple has 69 cars and 143 drivers; Tesla has 32 cars and 136 drivers.
Although Apple has more test cars than Tesla, Tesla, as a car company, develops its self-driving system by using hundreds of thousands of customer cars equipped with an array of sensors to collect road and driving data and test its self-driving system in "shadow mode."
At the same time, relevant news shows that Tesla will launch L5 fully autonomous driving functions in some areas next year. In fact, the evolution of radical autonomous driving features is also one of the factors that contribute to Tesla's success in the automobile market.
In addition, Waymo has been in the field of autonomous driving for many years. In November this year, Waymo released its first autonomous driving test report. The report showed that since the first test of its autonomous driving technology in Phoenix, Waymo cars have traveled a total of 6.1 million miles ( Approximately 9.82 million kilometers), of which 65,000 miles (approximately 105,000 kilometers) were completed without driving.
At present, these leaders in the field of autonomous driving are not yet able to complete autonomous driving above L4 level. It is not easy for Apple to truly achieve it. In this regard, Qiu Kaijun, a senior automotive industry practitioner, said that Apple's car manufacturing is very confidential, and no one knows what level it is. But for Apple's imagination of building a car, it must not be a conventional vehicle, but it may be a travel terminal with L4 or above autonomous driving. But from the current point of view, it may remain to be seen whether Apple can provide a tool that does not require human driving at all.
He continued to explain: Autonomous driving is an applied technology, which requires continuous practice in practice, continuous collection of data, changing algorithms, and may also need to continuously improve its things based on everyone’s feedback. Therefore, this is very important for localization. The requirements are very high.
In fact, China's road traffic environment is very complex. It is not that a foreign company comes with a set of algorithms or solutions and becomes very powerful as soon as it is put into China. Therefore, Qiu Kaijun believes that even if If Apple wants to build a car, and if its L4 level autonomous driving terminal is to be used well in China, it may also require a long period of practice in China, and a long period of kilometers of verification and practice, before it can be polished. A set of travel tools that are very suitable for China’s road conditions.
In addition, in terms of smart cockpits, Apple actually has its own ecological advantages and its own ability to define user needs. But the problem is that the disruptive technologies that Apple can currently produce have already been considered by everyone in the automotive market. , such as new electronic and electrical architecture, high degree of software and hardware integration, ARHUD, etc. Many companies are already trying to do these things.
Based on this, it is not yet possible to see whether the Apple car will have a crushing advantage over traditional car companies when it comes out. Guo Jishun believes that after the release of Apple cars, Apple will not miss any of the pitfalls that Tesla has stepped on before. We hope that Apple can bring some new ideas, new technologies, new concepts, and new product forms to the industry, but in fact it has many pitfalls that it must overcome.
Senior automotive industry practitioner Shi Baohua also said: "Looking at the automotive industry, whether Apple is building a traditional car or a future mobile travel terminal, no matter what its product form is, I think what bigger products should be Thinking about the inspiration his impact on the market has brought to these new forces in China or these new companies in the future, I think this may be more critical,"
he explained. Dao: Before Tesla entered China, everyone was worried about whether Chinese new energy vehicle companies would be no longer viable after entering. But in fact, Tesla has given rise to greater progress in China’s new car-making forces. Therefore, Even if Apple enters this industry, it will definitely accelerate the development of this industry. Therefore, there is no need to worry about the possible demise of traditional car companies. Even if traditional car companies die, there will be new car-making forces or other companies growing up. , to fill this gap.
Conclusion: There is not much time left for traditional car companies.
From the above, it is difficult for Apple to develop a product that can subvert the entire automotive industry. However, it is undeniable that Apple is A strong competitor. However, facing the future smart car market, even without Apple, Tesla and new car-making forces have already brought strong pressure to traditional car companies.
In this regard, Guo Jishun believes that traditional car companies need to change as soon as possible, and the window period should not exceed three years at most. Regarding the future of traditional car companies, Guo Jishun also said that only localizing functions, finding differentiated markets, and improving bicycle efficiency are their opportunities.
Zhang Yongwei, vice chairman, secretary-general and chief expert of the China Electric Vehicles Association of 100, also said that the window period for Chinese car companies to transform into high-end new energy vehicle brands is two or three years. If within this time, they cannot Once you gain a gradual advantage in the market, you really have no chance to do it again.
Based on this, there is really not much time left for traditional car companies at this stage, but it is so easy for an elephant to turn around. It remains to be seen who can make it to the end.
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