“The challenge that the old manufacturers are having is that they have to cannibalize the profits of their existing lines by making completely new vehicles from the ground up to compete,” Mike Barnard writes for Quora. “So they mostly won’t.”
“The future of cars is battery electric vehicles. That’s just a reality. There are a bunch of reasons for that but here are a few: Electricity from generation to wheel is a lot cheaper than any of the proposed intermediaries such as hydrogen fuel cell and air carbon capture + electrolysed hydrogen fake-gas or diesel,” Barnard writes. “The VW scandal is just making public what a lot of people already knew: it wasn’t possible to make gasoline or diesel engines significantly better in the compromise space between CO2 emissions, NOx and other pollutant emissions, mileage, performance and engine longevity. That road, amazing as it has been, has reached its end. Electric cars just outperform everything else. I ran across a video of a 1968 Mustang fastback conversion to electric that give it 1.94 seconds to 60 mph and a top speed of 174. ”
“So what’s going to happen to the car industry?” Barnard writes. “All of the majors will continue to deny the reality of the situation and continue to bet on cars with traditional frames, limited batteries, limited electric range and performance and with internal combustion engines continuing to do the heavy lifting. New competitors such as Tesla and Apple will kick the traditional cars to the curb in every way. More will enter as it becomes obvious to corporations outside of the automotive industry that a massive disruption is killing the traditional car companies and that they are incapable of responding to it.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Once again, as we wrote back in March: “When Apple enters markets, it’s because they can bring something(s) so unique to the table that significant disruption is inevitable.”
When Apple looks at what categories to enter, we ask these kinds of questions: What are the primary technologies behind this? What do we bring? Can we make a significant contribution to society with this? If we can’t, and if we can’t own the key technologies, we don’t do it. That philosophy comes directly from [Steve Jobs] and it still very much permeates the place. I hope that it always will. – Apple CEO Tim Cook, March 18, 2015
SEE ALSO:
Analyst: Apple Car will cost an average of $55,000 – October 16, 2015
Apple speeds up electric-car efforts, aims for 2019 ‘ship date’ – September 21, 2015
Survey: 77% of hybrid or electric vehicle owners would likely buy an Apple Car – May 13, 2015
What to expect from the Apple Car: Disruption – August 31, 2015
Apple Car: Tesla engineer joins Apple’s ‘Project Titan’ vehicle effort – August 21, 2015
Apple Car development proceeds apace – July 27, 2015
Apple hires veteran Fiat Chrysler auto industry executive – July 20, 2015
What’s up with Carl Icahn’s sudden obsession with the Apple Car? – May 18, 2015
Survey: 77% of hybrid or electric vehicle owners would likely buy an Apple Car – May 13, 2015
Apple Car: Forget ‘electric,’ think hydrogen fuel cells – February 20, 2015
Apple working with Intelligent Energy on fuel cell technology for mobile devices, sources say – July 14, 2014
North Carolina regulators approve Apple’s 4.8-megawatt fuel cell facility at Maiden data center – May 23, 2012
New aerial images of Apple’s planned NC fuel cell, solar farms published – April 7, 2012
Apple’s massive fuel cell energy project to be largest in the U.S. – April 4, 2012
Apple patent application reveals next-gen fuel cell powered Macs and iOS devices – December 22, 2011
Apple patent app details highly-advanced hydrogen fuel cells to power portable devices – October 20, 2011
[Attribution: Forbes. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
