Roger Fingas
The existing giants of the auto industry are better equipped to produce self-driving cars, at least when considerng the amount of patents they control, a study said on Tuesday.
Toyota leads the field when it comes to self-driving patents, according to Thompson Reuters data. In second and third place are the parts suppliers Bosch and Denso, followed by Hyundai and GM. Google, often thought to have kickstarted the rush to self-driving cars, is the highest tech company on the list at 26th.
The report commented however that non-U.S. companies tend to be more aggressive about filing patents, and that quantity doesn't equal quality. There's also an 18-month lag between when patents are filed and when they're made public, and many companies — including Apple — are relatively new to the self-driving arena.
Unusually, Thompson Reuters argued that Apple and Tesla would make good partners on a self-driving vehicle since they have complementary but not duplicate patents. The latter is said to be better covered in propulsion, particularly batteries, while Apple's specialties are in communication and navigation.
Recently the two companies have been engaged in a job poaching war however, and known to be working on their own self-driving projects. Apple will likely need some sort of partner in the auto industry to actually ship a vehicle, since there's no sign the company is building out the massive infrastructure needed for manufacturing.
Apple is expected to ship its first electric car in 2019 or 2020. The initial model may actually lack self-driving features, but the company is thought to have R&D working on the technology regardless.
Christine McKee
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32 Comments
Baloney! Automakers have been making combustion engine cars. They do not know how to make self-driving or electric cars any better than Silicon Valley.
The complexity of the combustion engine will be reduced to electric motors and power management which Silicon Valley have been doing for years. Granted there are many components to a car and there are even more components to an AirPlane. Electric self-driving cars are a whole new ball game. A smart Silicon Valley company like Apple can revolutionize the car industry. How cars are made, how they are driven, the navigation and entertainment systems etc... Electric Self-Driving or assisted driving cars are a great opportunity to revolutionize the space.
Apple and Tesla make good partners? Not a chance!
I think Apple & Tesla would actually make terrible partners and I think it is too late for Apple to buy Tesla and put them under adult supervision.
Apple is a secretive company that under promises and over delivers while Tesla is always bragging about what they are developing and often fail to deliver.
I agree that Apple may have an edge with coherent navigation, Apple Maps layers, power management and communication protocols etc... I think Apple is better off going it alone to better design and integrate the various parts. Look what they did with the Apple Pencil for example? They simply blew everyone else away with their 1.0 product. You see, we still think of cars (electric or combustion) the same way that we have for many decades, I think after Apple designs one, that will change. Remember, it's not just the appearance but also how it functions. Apple needs to design the whole package; not glue available bits and pieces from various vendors.
Personally, I am more interested in a connected electric vehicles with assisted driving becauseI don't foresee completely autonomous vehicles anytime soon. Bosch does have many patents having to do with self-driving cars; BMW uses some of them. I was not aware that Toyota was so far ahead in self-driving cars.
Time will tell.