“After teasing a possible insider’s look at an Apple Car, what Motor Trend actually produced was some very creative speculation. If Apple actually produced the car, the panel of ‘experts’ at Motor Trend envisages, it would be a disaster,” Mark Hibben writes for Seeking Alpha. “Investors needn’t fear that Apple is so stupid.”
“The Motor Trend (MT) article betrays the usual misconceptions about Apple and its products. MT assumes, as do many, that Apple is all about style over substance. That Apple has succeeded on the basis of its product design. Fads change, market interest shifts, and poor Apple is getting left behind by the relentless commoditization of the smartphone. Therefore, MT focuses exclusively on design, coming up with what it thinks would be Apple’s approach. Something ‘groundbreaking’ in a superficial way, a sleek, futuristic sci-fi car, such as you might see in The Minority Report,” Hibben writes. “The interior is even worse… but I don’t really want to dwell further on design, because I think this was a completely misplaced priority on the part of MT. MT gives almost no thought to the critical elements that could be discriminators for the Apple car: its propulsion system and AI based self-driving capability.”
“AI is less likely. Apple isn’t actually that strong in AI, although it naturally has the resources to catch up. Autonomous vehicle systems such as Nvidia’s (NASDAQ:NVDA) Drive PX provide a hardware platform, but there’s still much work to do in software development. Once again, it appears that autonomous capability is going to be a minimum requirement that just gets Apple into the game, rather than providing a discriminator,” Hibben writes. “That leaves propulsion systems, and this is where I think Apple may have something to offer. In fact, I consider it likely that Apple has some technology in electric energy storage that it assumes will be a discriminator. What that technology might be is open to question. It could be a breakthrough in battery technology, or something along the lines of a fuel cell…”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Wait, cars don’t need two-inch thick antenna lines running all around them?
Motor Trend should be embarrassed to have published such insipid dreck. Apple should sue them for festooning that piece of crap rendering with Apple logos.
Listen, Motor Trend et al.:
It is a mistake to look at the way the market is today, with low margins, and therefore conclude that Apple would ignore the market. The same goes for current technology. Who says Apple’s working on an electric plug-in car, for example?
Apple blows up markets and current technology for grins.
If you looked at the mobile phone market in 2002 and told people that, in five years, Apple begin to completely remake the cellphone industry, soon reaping nearly all of the profits in the process, with a $799+ pocket computer, you’d be laughed out of the room. (Of course, that didn’t stop us.)
Yes, it makes no sense for Apple to be developing a “car.” Apple developing a car makes perfect sense when you expect them to bring new things to the table to the table that will blown up and remake the current market. That’s what Apple does. If Apple can’t deliver paradigm shifts, then they don’t enter the market. — MacDailyNews, March 12, 2015
Chemistry and physics have laws that can’t be broken… What if the secret to the “Apple Car” isn’t the battery, but the fuel cell? — MacDailyNews, February 25, 2015
SEE ALSO:
The Apple Car, as imagined by Motor Trend – April 14, 2016
Avoid Tesla because hydrogen is the new electric – March 7, 2016
Apple leases 96,000-square-foot industrial facility as car talk swirls – March 3, 2016
Apple’s lease of old Sunnyvale Pepsi bottling plant hints at Project Titan expansion – March 1, 2016
Apple silent on mysterious noises coming from clandestine complex – February 27, 2016
Loud, late-night ‘motor noises’ emanate from Apple’s secret vehicle testing center – February 11, 2016
Apple Car: Forget ‘electric,’ think hydrogen fuel cells – February 20, 2015
Inside Apple’s top-secret ‘Titan’ electric car project – March 13, 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