Apple's experimentation with autonomous car technology is likely to veer away from creating a simple platform and back towards a fully self-designed vehicle, one analyst argues.
"Apple is investing in autonomous driving as 'the mother of all AI projects' but has not yet committed to a car," said Guggenheim's Robert Cirha in a report obtained by AppleInsider. "Yet we see its entire business model based on vertically- integrated control, so think it unlikely Apple sells modular AI to third-parties. We rather expect Apple to get all-in or all-out over the next 2 yrs., and are thinking all-in given the draw of technology disruption and sheer size of TAM [total addressable market]."
Apple was believed to have been working on its own car in 2015, but switched directions in late 2016, focusing on a platform instead. The company has been rumored as pursuing the ridehailing market, possibly in partnership with firms like China's Didi Chuxing.
Returning to a full-fledged vehicle would satisfy Apple's usual desire to control its ecosystem, but pose other obstacles. While it has tapped a number of experts, for example, as a business it's still new to car design and would have to compete not just against EV specialists like Tesla but every established automaker. It would also have to find partners anyway, since it doesn't have any manufacturing capacity.
It would moreover have to adjust to much longer upgrade cycles, and expand its support infrastructure. Automakers often provide parts and support for vehicles for decades, whereas Apple declares Macs and other electronics "obsolete" after just seven years.
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Analyst: "Apple may or may not do a thing. So, uh, will that be paid in a cheque, or..."
Astute analysis. /s
They're already all in, the analysts just don't know it yet, they know nothing about anything so that's not surprising.
The Chinese 1Billion investment in the ride hailing service wasn't just done for kicks, there is something important there that has not been fully used yet.
My guess is there is more than one experienced Chinese auto maker that would be jump at the chance be the "Foxconn of Cars" for Apple.
Toyota recently announced it was spending $3B on self driving car software technology. Car companies are doing their own thing. The idea that Apple will supply the brains for someone else’s car makes no sense. Other than the disasterous Mac clones when has Apple ever licensed software for someone else’s hardware? When it comes to autonomous and self driving vehicles without rock solid software there is no vehicle. It only makes sense that Apple would focus on the brains first and if they’re confident they can nail that then move on to the vehicle part. That could start out as building vehicles for ride sharing services and not direct to consumer.