Apple Hints at Plan to Build a Car After All as it Rehires Ex-Tesla Engineering Head

DooKey

DooKey

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The folks over at Tech Crunch believe Apple may be reviving its Titan car project. They base this speculation on the fact that Apple just hired Doug Field who used to oversee production of the Model 3 for Tesla. Additionally, he will be working with Bob Mansfield who heads the Titan car project as well as Jaime Waydo from Waymo's self-driving outfit. If you add all of this up it does appear that Apple may indeed bring their own auto to the market. Only time will tell and we'll have to keep an eye on this development.

While the project remains pretty opaque and tough to gauge, the hiring of the man who oversaw Tesla production - right after Apple poached a Waymo self-driving engineer - is a pretty interesting clue that suggests Apple might be reviving plans to develop a car once again.
 
Wonder what type of "features" it'll have!?
Wheels coming off doing 80, *that's a feature!
Windshield not defogging? *that's a feature!

OpenSource said:
I can't wait for proprietary wiper fluid. Only $99/1gal.
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Base model, 150 mile range $50k
300 mile, $100k
500 mile model, $250k
------------
Proprietary wheels, brakes, wipers......
Fast charge cable, + $20k
 
Appple can't make a new product that isn't a sheet of glass in 10 years......but they're gonna make cars. Probably cars perfect for Cupertino.
 
Overheating, slowing down when exceeding 60mph for too long, sketchy sirus connection due to hand placement on wheel, sub frame bending when items are placed in back pockets and non-user replaceable parts sound reasonable.

Need a head gun, soldering iron and splunger to replace the headlight :)
 
viper1152012 said:
Need a head gun, soldering iron and splunger to replace the headlight :)
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No, the headlights are integrated into body, they can't be replaced. And they fail if dust gets inside, which it does.

Also, you'll need a dongle to carry a passenger in the back seat, and a hub and two dongles to carry two passenger.
Plus a different dongle for a child's car seat.

The second generation iCar will require you to use a dongle for every cupholder.

Because "courage."
 
Seriously though, this seems out of Apple's domain.


If they want to enter another big business, how about servers? Amazon and Microsoft became 2 of the largest companies on Earth just hosting them, and Apple has more than enough chip making talent, as well as damn good ARM cores, to make their own servers.
 
Car seems unlikely to me. I thought Apple was looking to bring more chip manufacturing under their purview though instead of buying them from others. Could be he will oversee that production process.

Alternatively maybe Apple will invent a Car, then they and Tesla can duke it out for the same small market share while also fighting the big 3 about selling directly to consumers.
 
HeadRusch said:
Appple can't make a new product that isn't a sheet of glass in 10 years......but they're gonna make cars. Probably cars perfect for Cupertino.
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Guarantee the body is made of glass. Where hitting a fly will crack it. Also will sue all other car companies after they get the patlten for round edges.
 

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pcgeekesq said:
No, the headlights are integrated into body, they can't be replaced. And they fail if dust gets inside, which it does.

Also, you'll need a dongle to carry a passenger in the back seat, and a hub and two dongles to carry two passenger.
Plus a different dongle for a child's car seat.

The second generation iCar will require you to use a dongle for every cupholder.

Because "courage."
Click to expand...

It may spend more time in the garage then on the road but it will be designed by Johnny Ive so it will be beautiful, minimalist, and people will line up to buy them.
 
pgdeaner said:
It may spend more time in the garage then on the road but it will be designed by Johnny Ive so it will be beautiful, minimalist, and people will line up to buy them.
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People will then replace their garage doors with Apple's new iDoors, stylish Gorilla-glass panels with rounded corners and a notch, so that everyone can see that they own an iCar.

The glass panels will be invisible to the iCars driver-assist and self-driving systems.
Thousands of people drive their iCars through their iDoors.
Apple researches the issue, and solves the problem by telling people they were driving their iCars wrong.

Second generation iDoors will come with an embedded display to alert people (and cars) to the presence of the iDoor.
Apple will then sell advertising space on the display.

Because "courage."
 
Using their Foxconn slave labor, it should only cost a couple hundred grand and be available in 3 colors: space gray, silver and gold. :confused:
 
When an auto industry analyst was recently asked to speculate on Apple's possible car design having windows, the analyst answered: "Of course it will. You can't do anything useful with an Apple machine without first installing windows."
 
Doug Field who used to oversee production of the Model 3 for Tesla.
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Not sure that's a good hire. They only recently got Model3 production working correctly. Unless he went in, fixed the production issues, and left like a baller, he'd probably be part of the team that had the issues.
 
They did purge some people from the line citing sabotage and espionage so maybe dont hire the recently let go..... Just a thought.

Maybe they should build rockets next lolo loo l
 
I wonder if the car will shut itself off when you tell your passenger that the frogs are turning gay.
 
Proprietary charging plug and exclusive charging stations. It charges slightly slower than standard chargers. Includes empty mounts for four iPads, four iPhones, and two Apple Watches. Vehicle behavior can be updated via OTA firmware updates, but they don't affect things you care about because Apple won't collect user data.

Motor performance artificially degrades over time in order to keep up range estimates. The only user serviceable part are floormats. Non-warranty service costs eclipse the original price of the car. There's a permanently lowered sun visor obscuring the middle of the top of the windshield.

The audio sounds fantastic, but it's mono. There's room for three rows of seating, but the only options are one row or three. The two extra rows increase the cost of the vehicle by 35%. Apple receives a 30% cut on all parts capable of attaching to the vehicle, including tires, breaks, oil, and windshield washer fluid.

All parts manufacturers must raise prices for all compatible parts in order to ensure price parity, as is required for all "partners" on the approved vendor list. The entire top half of the vehicle is a single piece of glass. It has the structural rigidity of a Faberge egg.

There's one pedal. You push it to accelerate. You put your foot under the pedal and pull up to break. Bloggers, vloggers, and old media are amazed no other company ever thought brilliant, innovative interface before. Mazda, Hyundai, and Kia all adopt the interface on next years models.
 
That'll be an interesting repair video to see on Louis Rossman's YouTube channel.
 
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