(Imaginary image circulating on the Internet)
Two days ago, IHS Markit published a report "Imagining the 'Apple Car'", in which some speculations about the "Apple Car" parts and technology are actually very interesting, and the whole article is mainly divided into -
· Autonomous driving
· Networking systems for applications and V2X
· Battery system
· Body structure and materials
· semiconductor
· Software
· Interactive reality and AR HUD
In these aspects, because Apple has not officially stated the progress of the evaluation car, and the confidentiality of apple cars is very strong, there are too many unknowns about the production location, potential partners and expected production of all this, so it is necessary to make some layouts in advance for conjecture or information updates here.
Figure 1 Timeline of Apple cars
Part 1: Will Apple cars be mass-produced?
1) Will Apple Cars go into production?
Historically, Apple has invested resources in many cross-border areas to explore, but for Apple, "creating revolutionary products and becoming excellent" itself is a high standard of connotation, which makes Apple continue to give up and decide to terminate the development/release of some products in the forward-looking exploration - it must be released after the reputation must be successful. In fact, Apple has been exploring the automotive since 2014, coupled with the exploration of automotive entertainment systems, from a strategic point of view, Apple's entry into the automotive industry is of strategic value, for a revenue of more than $300 billion "aircraft carrier", in the traditional consumer field may be difficult to achieve meaningful growth.
I personally see it this way: the automotive industry is actually the backbone of the world's industrial countries, and if Apple enters this industry, it may also cooperate with European or Japanese car companies - using their stable manufacturing personnel, of course, the original car companies may become foundries.
2) What will apple cars look like?
Judging from Apple's tonality, if the family car is targeted, this car may be a little larger than the Model Y, comparable to the Model X, and as for the smaller size, it is unlikely at first. Apple's past success has been centered on providing the best user experience, with product designs with user-friendly, clean interfaces that, in some cases, will bring convenience to consumers when it pushes the boundaries in terms of design or performance.
Based on the results of Apple's car patents and California self-driving tests, it is speculated that if Apple cars can eventually be launched, there may be some breakthroughs in the field of intelligence, especially autonomous driving, and some innovations in interior design and function. According to media reports, Apple cars will debut in 2024, considering the supply chain, engineering design and manufacturing cycle and other related time constraints, this time window is relatively tight.
3) How much impact will Apple have on the entire automotive industry chain?
If Apple chooses to cooperate with traditional auto companies (depending on the will of both parties), it can accelerate the mass production of Apple cars faster, focus on customer-facing functions and services, and shorten the time to market. Apple needs to strictly control the development and integration of hardware and software, so it is likely to manufacture key components with partners such as Magna and/or LG.
Part 2: Ideas on the technical side
1) Autonomous driving
Plans to launch L4 self-driving cars are a gamble. First, there is uncertainty about the regulation of the regulations, and the transport of passengers requires further permission from the regulator. The MaaS business model based on automatic driving can support Apple's differences, realize apple content and user experience attention, and have a high probability that Apple will launch a relatively high-level automatic assisted driving and allow the cockpit to interact deeply.
Note: The core component of Apple's car is the development of a huge automatic driving assisted driving system, which must be a very core embedded design, that is, around how to better automatically drive the vehicle to think, I personally think this piece of attention is the biggest.
Figure 2 Apple's self-driving technology has been in reserve for a long time
2) Vehicle connection system - mobile application and V2X
Apple's app ecosystem and cloud platform are also the most core elements of Apple's car, so embedding its app store in the car is inevitable, so how to provide a developer-friendly framework and provide certification for in-vehicle applications is a challenge.
Apple is likely to develop V2X as a core element, one of the most active areas of Apple's patents, covering navigation interfaces, messaging, resource selection, and even the use of non-standard road signs for communication.
Figure 3 The vehicle connection system is a basic disk
3) Battery system, materials and body structure
Judging from the previous revelations, Apple tends to build around lithium iron phosphate batteries, and builds a battery system by defining its own battery cells, but there is no special information to support the disclosure of this piece of information, and China, Japan and South Korea have some subcontracts to do some conceptual design. There is still a possibility of doing it through LG Magna e-Powertrain. And the material of the car body, including the overall safety, whether Apple can move from the design of the size of the mobile phone to the large piece of the car, we wait and see.
Figure 4 Battery system and use of body materials
4) Chips and software
Another outstanding advantage of Apple is that it can design its own chips. There is a high probability that Apple can use its existing IP catalog to develop automotive-specific SoCs around the needs of cockpits and autonomous driving, while developing dedicated IPs for automotive-specific process nodes.
The key to Apple's design philosophy is to achieve tight integration of hardware, software and services, with a strong emphasis on internal software functions. This is a source of advantage for all of Apple's products, and it will be one of the biggest selling points in its automotive offerings. Apple's software strategy in the automotive space is expected to include deeper stack control than most other automakers, including operating systems and middleware, as well as advanced analytics and connectivity capabilities.
Remarks: The hash rate competition in the cockpit has just begun, after a large number of functions are integrated, it is foreseeable that the computing power demand of mobile phones is not as strong as that of cars due to power consumption limitations, and cars will become the consumer goods with the largest demand for computing power.
Figure 5 Apple's software and chips
5) UI/UX - Augmented Reality - Heads Up Display
Apple is likely to adopt a minimalist, virtual user interface/experience design to attract consumers, which includes the refactoring of cockpit interactions (dashboard, center console, steering wheel), and since Apple has a large number of patents on augmented reality technology head-up displays, it is likely that it will be equipped with augmented reality head-up displays, creating a simple user interface without dashboards.
Note: Devices such as Apple's mobile phones and Apple Watch can interact with cars in one go.
Figure 6 Conception of interaction
brief summary:
Regarding Apple Cars, the disclosure of exact information is particularly small, and IHS Markit's conjecture is only a conjecture. However, this is the first consultation agency's speculation on Apple's car, readers have time to find the original text to take a look, these speculations are mainly focused on the apple car's comparative advantage to extend, in fact, ignore the endogenous innovation.
Figure | network and related screenshots
About author:Zhu Yulong, senior electric vehicle three-electric system and automotive electronics engineer, author of "Automotive Electronics Hardware Design".
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