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Transportation Apple

Apple Accelerates Work on Car Project, Aiming for Fully Autonomous Vehicle (bloomberg.com) 71

Apple is pushing to accelerate development of its electric car and is refocusing the project around full self-driving capabilities, Bloomberg News reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter, aiming to solve a technical challenge that has bedeviled the auto industry. From the report: For the past several years, Apple's car team had explored two simultaneous paths: creating a model with limited self-driving capabilities focused on steering and acceleration -- similar to many current cars -- or a version with full self-driving ability that doesn't require human intervention. Under the effort's new leader -- Apple Watch software executive Kevin Lynch -- engineers are now concentrating on the second option. Lynch is pushing for a car with a full self-driving system in the first version, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private.

It's just the latest shift for the car effort, known as the Special Projects Group or "Project Titan," which has endured strategy changes and executive turnover since starting around 2014. In September, the former head of the team, Doug Field, left for a job at Ford Motor after three years in charge. In picking Lynch as his replacement, Apple went with an internal executive who isn't a car veteran. In trying to master self-driving cars, Apple is chasing a holy grail within the industry. Tech and auto giants have spent years on autonomous vehicles, but the capabilities have remained elusive.

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Apple Accelerates Work on Car Project, Aiming for Fully Autonomous Vehicle

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  • by IWantMoreSpamPlease ( 571972 ) on Thursday November 18, 2021 @01:22PM (#61999603) Homepage Journal

    I can't wait to see how this clashes with the right to repair or the Magnusonâ"Moss Warranty Act.

    • well you'll need to break the car in 2 to change the battery, but aside of this,...
    • You can't get repair information or parts from Tesla either, despite that warranty act, so I don't think it actually has any teeth.
      • by Anonymous Coward

        The tech industries desire to fight 3rd party repair, and love of subscription models is a cancer spreading into every niche of our lives.

      • The Magnuson Moss Warranty Act has perfectly sharp teeth, and precisely nothing to do with whether or not you can get repair information or parts.

      • Several requirements applied to vehicles with internal combustion engines do not apply to Teslas. For example, the ODB2 [wikipedia.org] standard which is required for emissions testing is not found on a Tesla.

        I fail to see how the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act [wikipedia.org] impacts right to repair. It does not sound like right to repair was even a consideration when writing the warranty act.

    • tires $299 each must buy all 4 at the same time.
      And our shop will install them for only $129 more.

      Battery service $15K-20K Core Charge (refund based of how much of the battery can be reused in other cars)
      lights $199-$299 each
      wiper fluid $59

      EU changing plug $299

    • Repair? Nah, everyone will just buy a new car ever 1-2 years.
  • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Thursday November 18, 2021 @01:27PM (#61999623) Homepage Journal

    It seems that they came to the same conclusion that Google/Waymo did - driving aids just lead to people not paying attention, so full self driving is the way forward.

    I wonder how far along they are. The front runners have commercial taxi services already running.

    • Re:Same conclusion (Score:5, Informative)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Thursday November 18, 2021 @01:37PM (#61999671)

      full self-driving is the way forward.

      That isn't clear. So far, Tesla's model of SD on the highway and HD on local roads has been more successful. The problem with full-SD is that there are A LOT of weird corner cases, and you need to handle 100% of them.

      The front runners have commercial taxi services already running.

      Those services are restricted to pre-mapped routes.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Tesla isn't self driving at all, it's a driver aid. Their driver aids are average, other manufacturers have hands free, for example.

        Waymo has full self driving, without safety drivers. They are still finding a few issues but it has proven reliable. Better than human drivers.

        • Yeah right. Now put that AI in a narrow european single lane road with only a few passing places and a driver on a missing coming the other way. Good luck!

      • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        Tesla doesn't have self driving on highway. It has a driver assist on the highway. Driver must be alert and ready to take over at any time. Read the manual.

        • Driver must be alert and ready to take over at any time.

          The lawyers make them say that so they can blame the customer when things go wrong.

          I have a Tesla. I never have to "take over" during highway driving. For all practical purposes, it is full-SD.

          Read the manual.

          You are confusing documentation with reality.

          • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

            Like I said, you should inform Tesla about your findings. Because they themselves only claim Level 2 both in their technical and legal documentation. I.e. it's not just lawyers. It's also engineers.

            And they promised Level 5. A lot. And keep telling us that it isn't happening, because of technical difficulties. And here you are, claiming that they already have level 5. Imagine how happy they would be if you were telling the truth. They could finally deliver on so many of their promises.

      • by amorsen ( 7485 )

        That isn't clear. So far, Tesla's model of SD on the highway and HD on local roads has been more successful. The problem with full-SD is that there are A LOT of weird corner cases, and you need to handle 100% of them.

        It is strangely the exact opposite. The full self driving beta software disengages on motorways and leaves you with the more primitive autopilot software.

        As others have pointed out, it isn't full self driving at all, because you have to be ready to take over. However, it does seem to generally take people from point A to point B without intervention, so in that way it's self driving. Kind of.

      • It has been successful commercially, it has also dented a lot of firetrucks ... and killed some poorfags in a honda civic with a bad lawyer. They have no self driving in highways (ie. level 4/5).

        What Tesla has been is extremely lucky, but even if the luck holds out, people will want what they were paid for eventually. Which presents a problem, because they will never deliver level 4/5, not even on the highway.

    • We know Apple is working on some type of car project, but it's hard for me to believe they'd be ahead of Google.
    • I don't see how Apple can catch up with waymo or Tesla. This is not the kind of thing you can solve by working really hard in the lab. Interaction with all the variety of the real world is the whole point. Waymo's approach seems more systemmatic; Tesla's is very aggressive (letting the public control safety-critical beta functionality); but both are making steady undeniable progress. A few Apple Lexus mules have been spotted in the wild, but that seems awfully tiny compared to waymo and Tesla.
      • I don't see how Apple can catch up with waymo or Tesla.

        It depends on what catching means. Tesla scores really high on customer satisfaction and really low on car reliability and quality. A lot of that is due to the Tesla image (and focusing on a responsive, fun driving experience). Even though Tesla's autonomous driving is way behind Waymo, Tesla is way ahead and selling and marketing autonomy.

        Fortunately for Apple, responsiveness, fun, and marketing are historically strong capabilities.

      • With a market cap around $30 billion, Apple could buy Waymo with the cash it has just laying around. So Apple must believe its approach will produce higher profits than what Waymo is doing. It's not always trying to catch someone else, it's finding the niche that is ready for innovation and then taking full advantage of it.
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Apple's usual MO is to buy tech from someone else and package it with a reality distortion field generator.

    • I live less than a mile from Project Titan HQ (or where it is strongly rumored to be) and although I can't speak to how far along they are, I can stay there's been a very noticeable spike in the number of their white Lexuses driving around our streets since around spring of this year. I used to see one every few weeks, now I'll see 2-3 every *day* - even out at night and in the rain in the recent storms.

      For reference, it's probably comparable to the amount of Waymo/Google 'Panda' cars that were on the stree

  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Thursday November 18, 2021 @01:29PM (#61999635)

    It will be the sleekest design ever, welded shut except for the door (yes, the single one) that you may enter through. Extra seats sold separately, no car stereo but you can stream your Apple song library directly to your built-in speakers (sold separately). Since it's self-driven, no steering wheel or pedals will sully your experience, until the EU tells Apple in no uncertain terms that cars need to have steering wheels and pedals to be street legal, so Apple will install something akin to a steering wheel somewhere in the middle console and three pedals spread out between the passenger seats.

    • must buy an apple mobile data plan (roaming extra!)

    • They'd get rid of the door too if they could.
    • Guys! Still thinking of old Apple strategies. Come on, Apple will evolve.

      If Tesla built its own charging network, Apple will go one step further and create its own iRoad network, (It will sue the Dept of Transportation for infringing the copyright on iNterstate ). You need to buy monthly on going subscription to iRoad.

      • No chance Apple will make their charger port compatible with existing infrastructure LOL. And we already know the color of the charging cable.
    • When you charge the car Apple takes 30%.

    • I can't wait to see the charging cable. It will have all the same conductors as the CHAdeMO, Tesla and CCS but a different connector. They will claim it has the fastest charging of any car, but really, it will be the same or slightly slower than Tesla. An adapter will be available to connect to other charging systems but it will cost $1000. In Europe they will include the adapter at no charge, but the car will cost about €1000 more than other markets.

      Then, after 2 years they will change the connect

    • You missed the obvious one. It will charge via a lightning cable.

      • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        You missed the obvious one. It will charge via a lightning cable.

        And it will be necessary to turn the car upside down to plug it in.

      • Lightning? You think Apple would rely on a standard that is that old?

        No, we'll get a NEW AND IMPROVED standard! With "standard" of course meaning "being incompatible with anything that could be considered a standard".

    • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      It will be the sleekest design ever, welded shut except for the door (yes, the single one) that you may enter through.

      Silly user. If you were actually in the target market, you would know that Apple products have no doors — only (at most) windows. But as an embedded system, it will probably be iOS-based, so there will be at most one window, and that will be considered an implementation detail.

      In practice, users will be expected to hold on to razor-sharp edges on the outside of the vehicle frame without letting go. Anyone injured is clearly holding it wrong.

      Apple will, however, allow third-party manufacturers to bu

      • Basically they'll make the shell so paper thin that even looking at it oddly will dent it, so you'll pretty much have to buy aftermarket skinning covers to avoid that, making it way more bulky than the average car, which usually would have more storage room, but storage room has to be removed.

        For courage!

        • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

          Basically they'll make the shell so paper thin that even looking at it oddly will dent it, so you'll pretty much have to buy aftermarket skinning covers to avoid that, making it way more bulky than the average car, which usually would have more storage room, but storage room has to be removed.

          For courage!

          Of course, for 5x the normal market rate, you can double, quadruple, or even octuple the storage space. However, they deliberately design it with no way to add a receiver or hitch, so you can't add storage later. You have to buy it with as much space as you'll ever need. If you need more storage, such as when moving across the country, you have to replace your car.

  • Well thank you.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ti-coune ( 837201 ) on Thursday November 18, 2021 @01:31PM (#61999653)
    ... to Elon Musk and the team at Tesla to have the balls to jump in first. Without you we would still only see funky looking electric cars at car shows and all agree electric is the future. Now the other players are jumping in too and well make it our present.
  • Surely it's going to be someone else's electric car with an iPad or two in it, and lots of shiny design.

  • Apple has laid down a challenge are you up for it?

    Joking aside, the problems with their certification even if the laws allow such vehicles AND persuading the insurance industry to insure them will be immense.
    Good luck Apple, you are going to need it. Those laws need to be being debated today not tomorrow. You can't build something in the hope that it will be compliant with the laws. The laws have to come first.

  • But you just have one tiny thing that you have to eliminate - humans.

    Seriously, a highway full of autonomous trucks delivering freight around the country is easy to do because everything is predictable. But throw in humans (weaving in traffic, not paying attention, going too fast or too slow, not maintaining steady speed, not signaling, cutting in and out, walking alongside or crossing road, etc.) and things get really complicated really quick.

  • All the autonomous vehicle research orgs other than maybe General Motors have the fundamental problem that their engineering and testing staff live and work in the Silicon Valley/San Jose area, with perhaps a few in LA, and they do their testing there or in the new-build cities of the Southwest. I can just barely imagine Apple being able to produce a vehicle that displays Level 3 autonomy (not Level 4) on the broad well-marked streets of the coastal California exurban environment or Phoenix. I haven't see

  • Like every new technology, the beginning is a scramble for patents. Sensors need to be perfected. Logic will be complex at first and require creative refinement. Communication systems will develop as thousands of cars on the road send data back to central for analysis and simultaneously communicate with nearby cars on the street for safety. This is the richest field for intellectual property we've ever seen.

    And so the big and the small developers, the successful sellers of cars and the also-rans--essentiall

  • As if a sane person would want to drive an electric vehicle, let alone one by Apple.
    It will be even harder to troubleshoot.
  • Frankly, I want an EV that I drive. I like driving.

    I do not want to pay $X more for a bloody e-vehicle that drives itself - I want to drive.
    Plus it should well be significantly cheaper!

    Can I get a Tesla model XYZ without the bloody bells & whistles??
    PS: A spare tyre would be good as well..
  • They've remained 'elusive' because no one has any fucking idea how 'thinking' actually happens in an biological brain, just like we have no idea how 'self awareness' or 'consciousness' actually works in a human brain, and until we do there won't be any 'self driving cars' that are anything other than a deadly accident waiting to happen.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell

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