Technology Companies And Auto Manufacturers Have Uneasy Relationship

Auto manufacturers are well aware that most of the innovations in the industry are coming from technology companies like Goole, Apple, Samsung, and others. Some top executives are quietly nervous that the tech crowd could overwhelm traditional car makers. Prior to the 2017 Technology in Motion conference in Detroit next week, Mike Ableson, vice president of strategy and global portfolio planning for General Motors, told Automotive News there is a need to look at “the innovations coming out of Silicon Valley from Apple and Google and Samsung and put boundaries around that, not just for the OEM but also for the consumer. How far into the car do you let them come?”

One of the buzzwords in the industry recently is “connected cars” — vehicles that allow drivers and passengers to access the internet while driving so they can check their e-mails, send out tweets, and share selfies with their thousands of Facebook followers. Someday, connected cars may even talk to each other. Technology is also a major component of driver assist features like lane keeping, blind spot monitors, emergency braking systems, and self driving programs like Tesla’s Autopilot. Enhanced navigation capability is also tech driven.

Frank Weith, director of connected services at Volkswagen Group of America, says automakers need to ensure their identity isn’t lost with the incorporation of a wide variety of new technologies. “We don’t want to be just a commodity, selling bulk vehicles to Google or Apple or Uber,” Weith said. “We want to be part of the consumer experience and keep our product up there.”

Nvidia is deeply involved with automotive technology. It has recently showcased its new “supercomputer in a box” which employs machine learning to teach itself how to drive. Nvidia is now the provider of the computer that makes Tesla’s new Autopilot 2 possible. Bill Veenhuis, senior solutions architect at Nvidia said it is possible to strike a balance between the car culture and tech culture. The best way of doing that is speeding up the pace of innovation in the automotive industry while making automotive technology more long lasting than conventional consumer technology. “It’s about forging Silicon in Detroit and creating technology that lasts,” he says.

So far, automakers feel they ultimately have the upper hand. “At the end of the day, you have to build cars at rate,” said Lear Corp. CEO Matthew Simoncini. “It’s one thing to make a concept and sell 10,000 of them out of a mall; it’s another thing to actually go out there and make 250,000 vehicles.”  That last part is aimed directly at Elon Musk and Tesla Motors. Of all the car companies in the world, Tesla has done the best job of merging auto manufacturing with technology.

To paraphrase an old adage, “Coding is easy, making cars is hard.”

Source: Automotive News

The Apple Car Is Dead, Says Bloomberg

“Building an automobile is hard,” says Elon Musk. He should know. He has ridden the tiger and knows better than anyone how close Tesla Motors has come to financial ruin on more than one occasion. When Tesla first started selling electric cars in 2012, many industry observers predicted it would quickly come to grief. But it didn’t. In fact, it prospered in the face of impossible odds. It was so successful that Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, decided his company should get in the swim and build its own electric car to compete with Tesla. How hard could it be?

Actually, pretty damned hard. Word has leaked from within Apple that it has decided not to build a car after all. According to Bloomberg News, hundreds of Project Titan employees have been reassigned, let go, or quit.

Just a few months ago, Apple brought senior engineer Bob Mansfield out of semi-retirement to be the head ramrod on the Titan program. Mansfield was a close confidant of Apple founder Steve Jobs and has spearheaded several of the company’s more successful product development programs. Mansfield apparently didn’t like what he found when he took over Project Titan.

A month after taking over the reins, Mansfield made an announcement to the team alerting to a shift in strategy. He said that after examining the program, he had determined Apple should not attempt to be a competitor to Tesla but rather a maker of self-driving systems it can sell to other manufacturers. According to insiders, Apple senior managers have told the Project Titan team it has until late 2017 to get its act together and decide on a final direction for the program.

Apple’s new direction faces headwinds of its own. Conventional carmakers are skeptical about turning over an important component of their automobiles to eggheads from Silicon Valley. Many worry they will soon be seen merely as assemblers of other people’s components rather than true manufacturers. They are wary of letting technology companies own the lucrative software components of their cars.

There was a time earlier this year when Elon Musk said somewhat wistfully that, one day, Tesla Motors would be worth as much as Apple, which currently has a market value of $700 billion. Based on the total fiasco that Project Titan has become, Apple should be worried that it doesn’t fall from its perch atop the business world while Tesla zooms by it in the fast lane.

At a time when Silicon Valley seems to think anyone over 30 is brain dead, it is interesting to see an old war horse like Mansfield being brought in to clean up the mess made by all those self-absorbed techies.

Source: Bloomberg News

Apple Car Project Backtracks Before Moving Forward

Sometimes, Apple’s mania for secrecy can be frustrating. We have been hearing rumors about it’s super-secret electric car program for years now. Supposedly, it has hired the best and brightest engineers from Tesla and other carmakers to work on the car. We hear reports that the team has expanded to over 1,000 employees. But how far have they gotten?

Earlier this year, project leader Steven Zadesky suddenly was no longer with the company. Officially, he left for “personal reasons.” Unofficially, that phrase is often code in the business world for someone who was given a generous severance package and told to clean out his office. Apple brought in Bob Mansfield, a longtime member of Apple senior management who had a special relationship with Steve Jobs.

Mansfield has been on the job for about a month now. The New York Times reports that he has laid off several dozen people and that Project Titan is undergoing a complete reboot, whatever that means. The most likely interpretation is that Apple has no idea what its goal is for Project Titan. As Forrest Gump so famously said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’re not likely to end up there.”

According to The Cult Of Mac, Mansfield is pulling back on the idea of making an electric car to concentrate on the software that will empower autonomous cars. Presumably, Apple could sell that system to carmakers that don’t have the resources to develop their own self-driving technology. Not quite the breakthrough the iPhone was, but better than nothing. Apple is seeing a decline in iPhone sales and desperately needs some blockbuster new products to keep its edge in the digital world.

Whatever Apple expects Project Titan to lead to, insiders now think it won’t see the light of day before 2021. The world of automobiles will be well into the electric car revolution by then. It seems ridiculous that the company with the largest stockpile of free cash in the world can’t get a handle on how to participate in that revolution, but as Elon Musk said after the Tesla Model X finally went into production two years late, building automobiles is really hard.

There have been reports from inside Apple that the seasoned production people Apple hired from other companies were scandalized by how clueless the eggheads who only write code were. They apparently have no idea what it takes to actually build an automobile. Some are said to have quit in disgust, convinced that Apple does not have the faintest idea how to turn Project Titan into a reality.

Of course, nobody knows for sure what is going on inside the company, which is more tight lipped than the NSA. But it looks for all the world like Project Titan is a quagmire that threatens to eat up piles of cash for no apparent gain. Steve Jobs would be embarrassed by this debacle.

Graphic by Motor1 via Cult of Mac

Senior Executive Placed In Charge Of Apple Car Program

Last week, Apple announced that  Steve Zadesky, the man who reportedly was in charge of the super secret Apple car project, has left the company “for personal reasons.” That is usually corporate code for saying someone has been fired without coming right out and saying so. In his place, Apple has turned to one of its oldest and most trusted veterans, Bob Mansfield.

Mansfield has been involved at the highest levels with such vital Apple products as the MacBook Air laptop computer, the iMac desktop computer, and the iPad tablet. According to the Wall Street Journal, he joined Apple in 1999 and was one of its top executives under Steve Jobs. Subsequently, he served as an adviser to the company. In 2013, Apple said Mansfield would remain at Apple to work on special projects and report directly to CEO Tim Cook. One of those projects — the Apple Watch — was introduced last year.

Until recently, Mansfield was largely absent from the company except for occasional visits. However earlier this month employees at Apple noticed that the company directory had changed to show all the senior managers on the Apple car project — code named Project Titan — were now reporting to Mansfield.

Apple insiders say the company has hired many people with automobile manufacturing experience. There are reports of clashes between the car building people and the traditional Apple employees who specialize more in software than hardware. Technology news site The Information reported last week that Apple had pushed back the target date for Project Titan to 2021, although it isn’t clear whether this is a target that Mr. Mansfield has approved.

Within the company, Mansfield has a reputation as a data driven decision maker who enjoys complex projects. However, one person familiar with his work cautioned that his involvement isn’t necessarily a sign that the car project is ready to move forward. Mansfield also has killed projects in the past.

The mystery around an Apple car deepens. Is it going to build a car or not? Will it be autonomous or not? Will it settle for getting is Apple Car Play systems installed as original equipment by existing manufacturers? Will it build a car itself or farm out production to an independent like Steyer?

Those are the questions that Bob Mansfield has apparently been asked to provide definitive answers to for Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Source: Wall Street Journal

German Press Says Apple Car Will Be Built By Magna In Austria

Rumors of the Apple Car just refuse to go away. Despite a stony silence from Apple, German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , reported on April 18 that Apple is operating a secret laboratory for the development of an automobile — in the middle of Berlin, no less. In addition, there are concrete plans to sell the car in Germany. The newspaper, known as FAZ, cites “informed sources” as the basis for its report. It says there are 15 to 20 “progressive thinkers” involved with the Berlin facility.

Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple is pursuing the development of an automobile under the code name Project Titan. Reuters reports that Apple had hired away Jamie Carlson, a senior engineer formerly employed by Tesla Motors, along with Megan McClain of Volkswagen. It also has landed Vinay Palkkode from Carnegie Mellon University and Paul Furgale of ETH Zurich.

Autoblog reports there are a few more interesting details in the FAZ story. Allegedly, the first-gen Apple Cars might not be autonomous. It will not appear until 2019 at the earliest and it may be available first through a car sharing arrangement as well as direct sales. The most unexpected part of the FAZ report is that the car, when ready for production, will be built by Magna at its factory in Austria.

Magna is a conglomerate that makes major components for many automakers. It also builds completed cars for clients. It is presently involved in the production of the BMW i3 and certain models of the MINI. Reportedly, it would transfer the MINI business to other locations to make room for the Apple Car.

Magna CEO Don Walker told the press last year, “We are, in my opinion, the best contract manufacturer in the world. [With] our ability to do small volume niche vehicle production and help with the engineering and the launch and the procurement … we’d be a logical person for anybody if they have small volume or [are] a new entrant coming out.”

Lyle Dennis, who runs Apple Car Fans, tells AutoblogGreen he thinks the rumored German connection is true. “I suspect this is real. There have been discussions between Apple and BMW. It wouldn’t surprise me if they did build the Apple car there.” Asked to comment on the story by FAZ, Apple characteristically said it “does not comment on rumors and speculation.”

So, there really is no hard information to go on other than some unknown “informed sources.” But operating strictly on a “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” basis, there are just too many reports and rumors flying around about the Apple Car to say that nothing is going on. Something definitely is happening in Cupertino where Apple has its headquarters. Maybe some day we will find out precisely what Apple is up to behind its corporate Cone of Silence.

Source: FAZ, Autoblog Photo credit: AutoBlog

What Is Happening To The Apple Car Project?

Just last month, Apple registered three new urls: apple.car, apple.cars and apple.auto. Earlier this month, Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, said it is an “open secret” that Apple is working on an electric car. “It’s pretty hard to hide something when you hire over 1,000 engineers to do it,” Musk said. Everybody and his brother knows the effort is code named “Project Titan.”

In August, Apple poached top software engineer Jamie Carlson from Tesla, where he was intimately involved in developing Tesla autonomous driving Autopilot program. In September, word leaked that the big bosses at Apple had approved a request to triple the size of the Project Titan team. Steve Zadesky, who previously worked as an engineer at Ford, was placed in charge of the expansion.

But now, word has leaked that Zadesky has suddenly left the company for “personal reasons,” according to Newsweek. A report by AppleInsider dated January 25 claims that Apple’s head of design, Jony Ive, has placed a hold on hiring for Project Titan. Insiders report Ive has “expressed his displeasure” with the way the Project Titan process is going.

A report in The Wall Street Journal dated January 22 suggests the project has run up against a number of challenges. Team members are said to be unhappy with the lack of “clear goals for the project.” They also say management is insisting on performance deadlines that are unrealistic. It is thought that 2019 is the target date for introducing an Apple Car, but that may just be the date when final design approval is expected.

Apple has no car manufacturing experience and no car factory. Even the irrepressible Elon Musk seems to have been chastened by how hard it is to actually build automobiles. Back in September, AppleInsider speculated that Apple had approached BMW about partnering to build its car. Apple apparently was impressed with the innovative BMW i3 electric car and thought it might make a suitable platform for its own vehicles. BMW seems to have been less interested than Apple was, however.

Have the wheels come off the Apple Car project? The company is notoriously secretive about its future plans, but if the rumors are reliable, Project Titan seems to be in serious trouble.

Photo credit: Silvery/Creative Commons via Newsweek

Apple's Making An Electric Car: Tesla's Musk Calls It 'Open Secret'

Liviu Tudoran's "Apple iMove" design study

One of the biggest automotive rumors of the past year or so has been Apple's reputed program to build an electric car. Known as "Project Titan," the program is reported to involve hundreds of engineers, and some analysts say its goal is to produce a car as innovative as the iPod or iPhone. Of course, Apple hasn't confirmed any car plans--and there is little hard evidence of "Project Titan's" existence.

But Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk considers the Apple electric car to be an open secret.

It is "obvious" that Apple will try to make a car of its own, Musk said in a recent interview with the BBC at Tesla's California design studio. "It's pretty hard to hide something if you hire over a thousand engineers to do it," Musk said.

Apple store

Back in September, it was reported that Apple was moving ahead with plans to triple the size of its car-development team--already rumored to be 600 strong. Musk apparently doesn't view Apple as a threat, saying only that the Cupertino company will "expand the industry." He said Tesla will still aspire to make the "most compelling electric vehicles," while also working with other companies to help them build electric cars as well.

This "more the merrier" attitude seems typical of Musk and other executives pushing electric cars. At a conference in Detroit last week, Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn said he welcomed more electric-car competition, arguing that greater numbers will force governments to increase support and build more charging infrastructure. Whether an Apple product will be a part of an expanded electric-car contingent is still unclear.

Liviu Tudoran's

The company is reportedly aiming for a "ship date" of 2019, but that doesn't necessarily mean the car will go on sale at that point. In Apple parlance, "ship date" can merely refer to when engineers sign off on the main features of a product, not when it is ready for sale.

Over the past few months, Apple has reportedly ramped up hirings of people with automotive and battery experience.

Last summer, it also appeared to lay the groundwork for testing of an autonomous prototype. Apple representatives reportedly met with officials from California's Department of Motor Vehicles to discuss that topic, and examined a testing facility near San Francisco.

More recently, Apple moved to trademark certain automotive web domains, including "apple.car" and "apple.auto."

Faraday Future Ask Us To Forget Everything We Know About Cars

January 5, 2016. Mark it on your calendar. That’s the date Faraday Future will unwrap its first production prototype and show the world what it has been working for so long in secrecy. To amp up the buzz ahead of the reveal, the company has released a new teaser video that asks viewer to forget everything they know about cars.

It asks questions like:

• “What if the back seat was the new front seat?”
• “What if all those cars parked in driveways had more interesting lives?”

Frankly, I have never been all that concerned about whether my car has an interesting life, any more that I worry that my refrigerator is feeling unfulfilled or my water heater suffers from Oedipal guilt. But Faraday Future is concerned about such things, apparently, and has a plan to make matters better.

On its website, Faraday Future poses existential questions like, “What if there was an electric car that not only helped preserve the environment — it actually made us look forward to the daily commute? What if such a car could redefine our relationship with the automobile itself?” Its self congratulatory rhetoric makes it seem like it is the only company on earth that ever dared look around the corner or beyond next week.

It seems clear that Faraday Future is targeting the brand new, on-demand car sharing segment of the marketplace created by autonomous driving systems. Soon, we will not own cars at all. We will simply summon the car we need when we need it via an app our smartphone. We will pay a fee to use it, then send it on its merry way when we are done. The fee-for-service model will be less expensive than buying a car, making monthly payments, paying taxes and insurance, and fixing it when it breaks down.

On the surface, that argument makes economic sense, particularly for urban dwellers who have access to multiple transportation options and probably don’t have a garage to park a car anyway. It may not work as well for people who live rural or suburban lives. And it doesn’t take into account who will dispose of the empty latte cups the last user left behind or who will plug it in so there’s enough juice in the battery for the next person.

Uber, Apple, Google, NextEV, Atieva and Tesla all have their eyes on the same market, though. What will the Faraday Future car have to offer that vehicles from those other companies do not? On January 5, we may find out.

Apple Electric Car Team Given Permission To Triple, Car Planned For 2019

We’ve been writing about the possibility of an Apple electric car for what seems ages. Though, things have really heated up this year and it seems like everyone high up in the auto industry is expecting Apple to join the car business.

In recent months, Apple has poached Tesla’s top autonomous driving engineer, poached other Tesla engineers with $250,000 signing bonuses, hired a former Fiat Chrysler Automobiles executive, poached a top engineer from A123 Systems, put hundreds of people to work on “Project Titan” (as it is called), and engaged in other funky business. Now, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple’s first electric car will hit the market in 2019. (Who leaks info to the WSJ these days, I don’t know, but I’ll assume it’s legit.)

According to the WSJ‘s anonymous source, Project Titan has been designated a “committed project.” This comes after a year of intensive work investigating the potential, including meetings with “two groups” of California government officials.

Apple is reportedly now planning to triple the number of people working on Project Titan, bringing it up to ~1,800. (With 1,800 people working on this project, you know we’re in for more leaks!   )

Surprisingly, despite all the hype being about Apple getting into the autonomous car game — and some people speculating that that’s all it’s been intending to do with Project Titan — the insider told the WSJ that it is going to start simply with an electric car. Of course, that makes plenty of sense, considering that fully autonomous cars are still super expensive to make, face huge regulatory hurdles, and still face big technical challenges. Entering the burgeoning and super promising electric car market — one that Big Auto is absurdly dragging its feet on — makes a lot more sense.

Clearly, Apple would face the big challenge of competing with Tesla (as well as Big Auto), but there is plenty of room in the market for more good options, and I could see Apple partnering with Tesla to give its customers access to Tesla’s Supercharger network. Furthermore, Apple is sitting on ~$200 billion in cash, which allows it plenty of room to get running. I’m actually surprised that 2019 is the target launch year.

With 2019 the target launch year, though, I wonder how Apple will actually look to enter. Batteries should be at such a place where Apple could theoretically launch with a long-range but affordable electric car. I could also look to make a big splash by launching with a few models — some more expensive and luxurious than others.

Two things are for sure though, imho: 1) the electric car market is going to be a lot different (read: a lot bigger) in 2019, and 2) Apple is going to look to become a big player in the market, and perhaps with a huge initial splash.

The WSJ goes on and on about the difficulty of getting a car to market by 2019, and sketicism even from within, but let’s be honest here: $100 billion or $200 billion can go a long freakin’ way in speeding up the development process. As just one example of that, Apple is able to hire a lot of seasoned experts from the auto world who have the right connections and know how to get things done. With a focus on making the design and prototype development process move along fast — and proper organization and leadership to enable that — Apple shouldn’t have much trouble getting a car on the production line by 2019.

But let’s remember that Apple will be facing a ton more competition than if it brought a car to market today. GM, Nissan, Volkswagen, Audi (if you want to count it as a separate company), Porsche (again, if you want to count it as a separate company), and of course Tesla have all announced plans or concepts for long-range, affordable electric cars. BMW intends to have plug-in versions of every single one of its models sometime in the early 2020s.

No matter how you cut the cake, though, this is exciting news for the electric car market, and society in general. This is the highest valued company in the world, and it is putting a lot of its money and resources behind electric cars. It sees electric cars as the future. Such a vision may seem obvious to those of us who thoroughly understand the benefits of electric vehicles. But the large majority still don’t know about most of these benefits. Apple will surely help guide their attention in that direction and speed up the EV revolution.

Is this a threat to Tesla and Tesla shareholders like me? I don’t think so. Tesla’s vision has been to speed up the transition to EVs. It has clearly inspired Big Auto to do more, and I’m sure it’s happy to be inspiring Apple and Google as well. As I just said, Apple entering the market will bring many more consumers in, and a good number of them may well look around and decide Tesla has the best products on the market. Generally speaking, a much bigger EV market is going to reward Tesla, the clear pacesetter.

Furthermore, any company looking to compete with Tesla is going to need to offer its customers widespread fast-charging infrastructure. No one is close to matching Tesla with that, and Tesla is adding approximately one Supercharger station a week. Apple would have to either make a tremendous investment in a similar network and spend years building it up, or pay Tesla to use the Supercharger network — I think the latter is a likely choice.

Similarly, anyone looking to sell a lot of electric cars is going to need a huge supply of batteries. Tesla and Panasonic are far and away leading the pack in battery production capacity expansion. Tesla is surely already thinking about where to build its 2nd and 3rd Gigafactories. Apple could partner with someone else, like LG Chem or Samsung, but it could very well partner up with Silicon Valley neighbor to the north Tesla.

A lot can happen in 4 years, but count me excited and optimistic. The future is electric, and the only question is how fast we get to that future.

Apple Titan Program Scouts Local Autonomous EV Testing Facility

Gomentum Station – The Perfect Test Area For Project Titan?

While Apple’s electric car program – code name Titan, has been in the news a lot for having “secret labs”, hundreds of employees, hiring away engineers from Tesla, as well as former industry personnel from other auto companies, there hasn’t been a lot of hard evidence that a full-fledged drive to put an EV on the road by 2020 under the Apple brand was actually going to happen.

Hard To Find This Kind Of Landscape Within 35 Miles Of Silicon Valley

Enter the Guardian, who with the help of a public records act request, has confirmed that at least Apple is acting like acompany with a plan to build an autonomous electric vehicle– and maybe one that is a little ahead of that 2020 schedule at that.

The Guardian says that just this past May, Apple was out looking to secure a large automotive proving ground in San Francisco, specifically a 2,100-acre former naval base – the GoMentum Station.

“The location is both remote and secured – protected by the military even, and billed as “the largest secure test facility in the world” for “testing validation and commercialization of connected vehicle (CV) applications and autonomous vehicles (AV) technologies to define the next generation of transportation network infrastructure.”

Video (below): Check out the GoMentum Station in this video of the Acura RLX autonomously testing their last month – looks like a pretty good location to test a secret EV to us!

Apple engineer Frank Fearon this May wrote (in correspondence with the Guardian under a public records act request):

“We would … like to get an understanding of timing and availability for the space, and how we would need to coordinate around other parties who would be using [it].”

Then later in the month, Jack Hall, who is program manager for autonomous vehicles at the Station, wrote back to Fearon to postpone a tour of the facility, but said:

“We would still like to meet in order to keep everything moving and to meet your testing schedule.”

The facility, which features over 20 miles of paved roads and city streets, has been used in the past by both Daimler and Honda.

When the Guardian more recently asked the owners of the GoMentum Station about the Apple project, they said that had signed a NDA with Apple and could only state that “they’ve come in and they’re interested.”

Concord Naval Weapon Station, California (via Gomentum Station)

According to numerous reports, Apple currently has a large team working on Project Titan in an anonymous office building in Sunnyvale, California, which is very close to the company’s main base of operations in Cupertino.

The news that Apple is now looking to privately test “something” may be a sign that their secret EV is ready to hit the road…or maybe that its next iPhone doubles as an autonomous skateboard or something.