is different from other mysterious projects that are "turned out" by the outside world every now and then. Apple's "Titan" project in the automotive field has almost disappeared from everyone's sight. But just when the outside world is about to forget that Apple also has a "dream of building a car," a recent report from "The Verge" revealed that key supply chain manufacturers revealed that Apple plans to launch its first electric car, Apple Car, in the third quarter of next year. At least two years ahead of schedule, dozens of prototypes are said to have been tested on the road in California, USA.
At the same time, according to Taiwan Province's "Economic Daily", Apple has recently made a request to auto parts manufacturers such as Heda, Bizlian-KY, Heqin, and Tomita, following the practice of preparing iPhone models starting from components. Stock preparation requirements and include relevant operators in the supply chain. Due to the strong demand for stocking, many of the above-mentioned suppliers have also experienced a comprehensive outflow of orders.
In fact, Apple’s current products related to the automotive field, in addition to the already quite mature CarPlay car system, and iPhone models equipped with U1 chips that can be transformed into car keys, the real car products can almost be said to have no shadow. Haven't seen it yet. From a few concept drawings to one year later, it is as if Apple can do magic. Before the debut of the iPhone 4, which was previously astonishing, it had at least accumulated a lot of experience through the first-generation iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPhone 3GS. experience.
In relevant reports from the Economic Daily or The Verge, supply chain companies are all Taiwanese manufacturers that have a close relationship with Tesla. For example, Heda is a supplier of reduction gear sets, Tomita provides electric motors, and trades Lian-KY provides the battery component wiring harness, while Delta provides the power converter. However, even if these parts are provided by suppliers, who will ultimately provide Apple with vehicle manufacturing? Although Tesla has a history of building cars in a "tent", its vehicle manufacturing plant is its own. Judging from the information that has been exposed so far, after Apple's own factory plan died, the foundation for the new factory has not yet been laid.
Yes, mobile phones and cars are similar in a sense. Both are capital- and technology-intensive products. With the development of the industry, the foundry model has become extremely common in the mobile phone field. Beginning to become popular in the automotive field. Many of the new car-making forces that have emerged in the domestic market in recent years have adopted the OEM production model, such as Jianghuai Automobile, which manufactures for Weilai. So, how does Apple find the "Foxconn" in the automotive industry?
Among the recent rumors, the weirdest part about the Apple Car is that not only was it not delayed/dead, it was released earlier than originally planned. From the few words that have been circulated, we can piece together the fact that Apple's car-building plan has entered a stage of gradually shrinking or recognizing reality since 2014.
Initially, Apple intended to lead a new transportation revolution and hoped to recreate the story of the iPhone in the automotive field. Earlier CEO Cook also said that "electric cars are electronic products like mobile phones, but they are larger." At its peak, it was said that as many as 1,000 employees were developing electric vehicles at a secret location near Apple's Cupertino headquarters, and building a car manufacturing plant in the southern United States in an attempt to produce independently. However, for some reasons, it was not possible to build an independent plant. The plan ultimately did not go ahead.
Since then, Apple has chosen to find partners from existing car manufacturers. However, its demands to control data and design have been difficult for traditional car manufacturers to accept, which has also led to the failure of cooperation with BMW and Mercedes-Benz . And after subsequent negotiations with Nissan and McLaren came to nothing, Apple found Magna-Steyr, known as the world's most diversified auto parts supplier, which has OEMed vehicles including Jeep. Cherokee, Mercedes-Benz M-Class, BMW X3, Aston Martin Rapide, MINI Countryman and many other well-known models, but in the end this cooperation was terminated.
Next, at the end of 2017, Apple and Volkswagen got on the line, and further retreated to using their own sensors and software to transform existing models. It was said that the two parties planned to transform Volkswagen's T6 trucks into electric unmanned shuttle buses. . However, after three years, the results of the cooperation between the two parties have not appeared. Therefore, the problem facing Apple now may be which other car manufacturer currently has the capacity to produce complete vehicles and does not mind its strong desire for control.
So we can see that the last exposure of the Apple car project was at the end of 2018. Doug Field, who served as Apple's vice president of hardware, Tesla's vice president of engineering, and was responsible for the Tesla Model 3 project, returned to Apple and started A new round of reorganization of the Titan project team. It is reported that as a result of this reorganization, 190 key engineers including 38 engineering project managers, 33 hardware engineers, 31 product design engineers, and 22 software engineers were laid off. At that time, the outside world also believed that the project called "Titan" did have some evil qualities. In the end, neither Blizzard nor Apple's "Titan" went as they wished.
Therefore, in the eyes of many people, Apple has begun to shrink its front line in the automotive field. The focus may have shifted from the initial hardware to software and technology, and it is concentrating on the development of the autonomous driving system . In fact, this speculation is not unfounded. As early as June last year, Apple acquired Drive.ai, a start-up in the field of autonomous driving, and obtained a large number of the latter's engineers and technical assets in the field of autonomous driving.
Earlier this year, Apple submitted a report to relevant California departments, which reportedly showed that public road testing of Apple’s self-driving test vehicles has been significantly reduced, from 80,000 miles in 2018 to 7,544 miles in 2019. At the same time, earlier this month, Bloomberg also reported that the head of the Titan project had been handed over from Doug Field to John Giannandrea, Apple’s senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy.
In the opinion of many people in the automotive industry, it may not be a particularly wise move for Apple to enter the automotive field and forcefully launch its own hardware products. Since it already has a very mature CarPlay, if coupled with future autonomous driving systems, as well as technologies in charging, vehicle systems, and vehicle body structure optimization, it will temporarily serve as a provider of software and some parts. There is a greater possibility to enter this field in a curved way to save the country to avoid falling behind. After truly taking root, choosing an opportunity to launch your own complete vehicle is a more pragmatic choice.
Therefore, regarding the relevant rumors from the outside world, we believe that instead of counting on Apple’s Titan project to be able to launch the Apple Car ahead of schedule after many disbandments, reorganizations, and changes in people in charge, perhaps it is better to hope that FF91 can be launched next year. Mass production will be achieved in the third quarter.
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