You may be able to buy an Apple Car in a few years, but you may not be able to drive it
The latest rumors suggest Apple has some ambitious, and unconventional plans for its future car products.
Apple’s been hard at work on its as-yet-unannounced car product for several years now. Though Apple has not made any kind of public acknowledgement that it’s even working on cars, it’s been the worst kept secret in the company’s history given the many people who have come and gone in leadership positions on the project, and Apple’s attempts to forge partnerships with existing auto companies for the actual manufacturing. Thanks to a new report from Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, it looks like Apple may have some really ambitious plans for the automotive industry.
Apple’s ideal car would have no steering wheel and pedals, and its interior would be designed around hands-off driving. One option discussed inside the company features an interior similar to the one in the Lifestyle Vehicle from Canoo Inc., an upstart in the EV industry. In that car, passengers sit along the sides of the vehicle and face each other like they would in a limousine.
First of all, this definitely sounds like the kind of radical way that Apple would want to disrupt the auto industry, so it makes total sense to me that Apple would be working toward something this ambitious. However, color me really skeptical that Apple will bring a car to market any time in the next decade without a steering wheel and pedals. Self-driving technology has come a long way in a short time thanks to efforts from industry leaders like Tesla, but we seem to still be a long way from being able to completely let a car drive itself in any driving conditions.
As a 40-year-old, I fear people my age and up are going to have the toughest time adapting to a world of self-driving cars. I certainly wouldn’t be happy in an automotive landscape in which no one could drive their own car. I actually really enjoy driving. That said, it would be great to have the option to rent the services of a completely self-driving vehicle for a long car trip. Thanksgiving bumper-to-bumper highway traffic would certainly be less stressful if you could sit back and watch a movie or browse Twitter without having to do the tiring job of heel-and-toe driving, or manage the stress of trying to find a time to change lanes.
My guess is there would also be significant regulatory challenges to bringing a driverless car to market. Laws and insurance regulations would have to be altered on a state-by-state basis. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a product of this type come to market only in California initially, or at best a handful of states. But if Apple could pull this off, it would certainly be a net benefit to mankind. For the disabled it would significantly improve their ability to get around. And if you can totally eliminate accidents involving driver error or fatigue, that could significantly reduce traffic fatalities. Big “ifs” for sure, but it doesn’t feel totally out of reach given the trajectory of computer advancements.
I also wonder if Apple would make this available as a product that you own, or if it would instead offer access to these vehicles as part of a subscription service. When you need a car, just use an app on your iPhone to reserve one and it will drive itself to your location for pickup.
The Bloomberg piece also spends a few paragraphs discussing the chip that Apple is developing that will power the artificial intelligence behind this self-driving system:
The Apple car chip is the most advanced component that Apple has developed internally and is made up primarily of neural processors that can handle the artificial intelligence needed for autonomous driving. The chip’s capabilities mean it will run hot and likely require the development of a sophisticated cooling system.
Apple’s impressive competency at chip design over the last several years, culminating in the extremely impressive M1 series of chips for the Mac, is what gives me the strongest sense that Apple might actually be able to do things in the industry that others haven’t.
Or will they go with two types of cars? One that’s entirely self-driving and more geared toward rent-to-use, and one that’s more like a “traditional” electric car like a Tesla that has self-driving capabilities alongside a steering wheel and pedals. Time will tell. I can’t help but have some skepticism, at least with regard to full self driving. But on the other hand, being bullish about Apple over last twenty-five years has worked out well for me. Either way, I’ll continue to be interested in what Apple eventually brings to market.