William Gallagher
The CEO of Volkswagen says he's certain Apple intends to expand CarPlay, but doesn't think it's likely to produce its own Apple Car.
Apple has publicly said that it has plans to bring a much enhanced CarPlay to more cars starting in late 2023. Now, though, Volkswagen's Herbert Diess says he suspects that's as far as Apple will go.
"I'm not sure if Apple will actually bring cars to the market in the end," said Diess, as first reported by Reuters. "It would be a big effort."
Diess said this during his opening keynote and Q&A at the start of the hub.berlin conference, which runs for two days from June 22, 2022. It's not clear yet whether he was responding to a question, or whether it was part of his introduction to the event.
According to Reuters, he did speak at the event of his certainty that Apple wants to provide software for what the car industry calls the "cockpit" of vehicles.
And Diess said in 2020 that he was "looking forward" to Apple's self-driving car. "The incredible valuation [of Apple] and thus the virtually unlimited access to resources instills a lot of respect in us," he said, in translation.
Charles Martin
Christine McKee
Malcolm Owen
AppleInsider Staff
Oliver Haslam
35 Comments
I’ve thought the same for a while now. It’s one thing to produce a system that is used in other people’s cars, and making the whole thing yourself. The latter involves setting up a dealer network, service and support systems, dealing with warranty claims and more. The current network of AppleStores would simply not work at all for this. Apple would have to build a new car dealership network from scratch. Apple has experience designing software. It’s another story with seats, air bag systems, wheel bearings, door locks, and all the rest of the stuff that goes into a car.
Why reinvent the wheel, when they can make something to go on other people’s products. Far less hassle and far more money to be made in the latter.
He may be right. Dashboards may end up like computer monitors of old, a blank slate for whatever OS a driver favors. Nothing to stop auto makers from providing a stock UI, but with a standardized interconnect module, Apple and Android fans can have a seamless experience.
At this point, it seems he's likely right.
Well. It was VW Group who thougt EVs are just a hype and they don’t have to care for it. Then they tried to jump to the fast going train… so will see how good this prediction is…