Malcolm Owen
The often-rumored 'Apple Car' could arrive earlier than expected, a dubious report claims, with Apple apparently planning to introduce the self-designed vehicle in September 2021.
The "Apple Car" is a product that has supposedly been in the works for years, regularly surfacing in rumors, patent filings, and analyst speculation.
While it has been thought the vehicle may be years away from being introduced, a new report suggests that Apple may show off its in-development vehicle in the next year.
An element of the Apple supply chain in Taiwan alleges that Apple is making plans to release the Apple Car in September 2021, at least two years earlier than its original intended schedule. Apple is alleged to be rushing shipments through its supply chain, including from Taiwanese car part factories such as Heda, Heqin, Tomita, and BizLink-KY.
The report from the Economic Daily News, first spotted by MacRumors, also claims that other domestic auto part factories are accelerating production, which apparently signifies the "Apple Car" orders are anticipated to happen soon. Mass production by Heqin is expected to expand, with a completion of one relocation task by the end of 2020 and the opening of a fifth workshop for one plant anticipated to finish by the second quarter of 2021.
While the Economic Daily News has a decent track record in regards to what is going on within Apple's supply chain, it is quite poor at predicting release timing. It is entirely plausible that Apple is prodding its supply chain for car part production, but it seems extremely unlikely that it would be for a vehicle that will supposedly launch in 10 months time.
For a start, there is a considerable lead time required to produce vehicles, possibly on a par with iPhone development and production. The sheer number and size of parts for car production would necessitate major production facilities for assembly, which have yet to really appear in supply chain rumors so far.
Other car manufacturers have high levels of secrecy yet leaks for unreleased vehicles surface months ahead of their launch. A similar cycle would be expected for Apple's car if it were in the end-phases of shipping a vehicle.
It is more plausible that Apple's supply chain orders are an initial preparation stage to test the waters before heading into production, or for the creation of a small number of vehicles for testing purposes.
This all leads to it being highly unlikely that Apple would be ready for a September 2021 release of its vehicle. This doesn't discount the possibility of Apple offering a tease for the vehicle at that time, but a release is almost certainly going to be further away than the report claims.
By contrast, the usually more accurate analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has previously suggested that the "Apple Car" will be realised as a shipping consumer product by 2023 at the earliest.
Marko Zivkovic
Christine McKee
Andrew Orr
Amber Neely
25 Comments
Very unlikely. Many regulatory hurdles - crash test certifications, etc - must be met before the cars could be licensed for road use. Apple’s attempts to pass these would have certainly leaked by now. Not to mention test cars spotted on roads.
September 2021? Of course, Apple is going to suck all the oxygen out of the news media and completely overshadow the release of iPhone 13.
Apple Car still continues to boggle my mind as to why Apple would even, as a strategic business proposition, want to add such a product to its portfolio.
In a future where cars are autonomous, why not just maximize the number of people who use their now-hands-free attention to work/play on an iPad or iPhone? Apple really wants to get into a product cycle that, for most people, is 5+ years? If not that particular market, then they intend to compete in the autonomous taxi space?
May be in video game!
The most important element is going to be battery technology. There are indications that breakthroughs on that front are imminent and it would be classic Apple to hold off on launching the product a couple of years in order to bring it to market sporting a better underlying technology. In other words, launch the product when the technology allows for it to be done right. Solid state batteries with twice the energy density and quicker charge times appear to be coming and that would mean launching an Apple car at a surprisingly affordable price point yet sporting a range that would make the product viable for a larger number of consumers.
The delay would in turn permit Apple to do the sort of thorough engineering it favours, especially important in developing systems it has never done before. Reliability, after all, is something important in a vehicle that operates in sometimes severe conditions and being a major expense, must function well over a long period of time. If Apple did release a car with interesting tech that gave owners all manner of problems in prolonged use, the result would not be worth the effort.
Product availability some time in 2023, seems quite doable, if the battery tech is ready for that date. What seems highly unlikely is that we’ll see an Apple car available for purchase in 2021. Teased, maybe, but on sale, no way.