At the beginning of the new year in 2022, the intraday market value of Apple stocks exceeded $3 trillion.
In addition to the high stock market performance, everyone is more concerned about the progress of the tech giant's car manufacturing.
Recently, key supply chain manufacturers confirmed that Apple cars will be launched in September 2022, and manufacturers are currently preparing to meet Apple's big orders, which also confirms the news of Apple's car manufacturing and once again triggers discussions.
There is a tension between mystery and anticipation, and the auto industry calls on Apple.
Even Li Bin, founder and CEO of Weilai Automobile, has publicly said that "Apple's car manufacturing is a meaningful thing for users and the industry."
However, Apple itself has always been silent about car manufacturing, and the outside world can only spy on the movement of Apple's car-making from some scattered information.
Recently, Bloomberg published a related report on Apple's car manufacturing, saying that Apple is stepping up the progress of the car; the heart of the car has sorted out the relevant information of Bloomberg and EE Times in order to present a complete map of Apple's car manufacturing territory.
1
Route Battle: Assisted Driving or Fully Autonomous Driving?
Apple set up the Project Titan (Titan Plan) project as early as 2014, and initially said that it wanted to build a whole car; but the follow-up progress was not smooth, and once turned to specializing in autonomous driving systems; in 2020, the news came out that Apple did not give up building cars and was also seeking contact partners in many ways.
It is understood that Apple is stepping up the progress of car research and development, and recently focused on autonomous driving technology, trying to solve a key technical problem.
At present, Apple has made important progress in the automatic driving system, has completed most of the core work of processor technology research and development, AI chips are already on the road, more complex automatic driving sensor systems and software drive systems will take some time, the future will also do safety redundancy at multiple levels.
Over the past few years, Apple's auto project has developed two routes simultaneously:
One is to develop assisted driving technologies such as L1-L3;
One is to achieve L4-level automatic driving in a limited scenario.
Kevin Lynch, who had previously been in charge of smartwatches, took over the car project and leaned toward the latter.
In early 2021, some engineers predicted that it would take 5-7 years for Apple to come out with a new car, but Apple wants to launch a new car in four years, which is why Apple cars are speeding up the pace.
But whether a new car can be launched in 2025 depends on how well the autonomous driving system is complete.
At present, Apple's car chips are developed by a team of Silicon Valley designers, and engineers of iPhone, iPad and Mac processors and engineers inside the automotive project will also participate, including polishing the underlying software and enhancing chip processing power in order to achieve autonomous driving.
After the corresponding progress in research and development, Apple will use new processors and autonomous driving sensors on the Lexus modified car to conduct road tests.
In addition, Apple cars may also be equipped with V2X technology to obtain more information for the system to make decisions.
In addition, Apple wants to build a model with a higher safety factor than Tesla and Waymo, so it is also looking for talents in safety redundancy.
In addition to strengthening the talent pool, in terms of hardware, Apple may choose Mobileye to provide security redundancy solutions, one based on cameras, the other based on radar and lidar, the two are redundant.
If it can't be done by then, Apple has two options: either postpone the new car or simply release a car with low-level self-driving capabilities.
2
The outline of the Apple car is outlined, and the steering wheel is not the point of view
Regarding the shape of Apple's car, there is also a lot of speculation from the outside world, mainly around the steering wheel dispute.
Apple's internal discussion is to make a Canoo-like Lifestyle Vehicle model - eliminate the steering wheel, pedals; but for safety reasons, it is possible to set up an emergency takeover mode, and the interior design is mainly based on off-the-hand driving.
Apple is more optimistic about Canoo.
At the beginning of 2020, it was rumored that Apple was interested in Canoo's vehicle architecture technology and intended to acquire Canoo; finally with the listing of Canoo, Apple gave up this idea.
But Apple's obsession with Canoo hasn't stopped, poaching Canoo's technical head, Ulrich Kranz, optimistic about its experience in modular platforms and vehicle architecture.
So it's no surprise that Apple is considering making Canoo's Lifestyle Vehicle model.
Another foreign media has drawn a hypothetical diagram based on Apple's patent design drawings. From the hypothetical drawing, the overall silhouette of the car resembles a coupe, with a two-door design, a SUV ground clearance and four wheels and four corners, and a large windshield.
Judging from the hypothetical drawing, it is still the interior design that retains the steering wheel.
The central control part is equipped with a large-size display, which is very eye-catching through the left and right, and will also support touch operations; Apple is also recruiting software engineers with experience in human-computer interaction, and the car system will also use an operating system similar to the iPhone; in addition, it should also be integrated into similar Siri voice control technology to achieve more efficient human-computer interaction.
In terms of in-car entertainment systems, cars will be equipped with more information systems than mobile phones, and perhaps high-quality sound systems and video systems will be added for passengers to use during travel or commuting to and from work.
For the autonomous driving environment, Apple will develop corresponding user apps and provide related services.
In terms of charging, Apple has discussed compatibility with the Combined Charging System (CCS), so that Apple cars can access the global charging network.
3
Landing model: commercial fleets and passenger car markets must develop
In terms of business model, Apple has also explored accordingly.
Apple has discussed building a self-driving fleet similar to Uber, Lyft Inc and Waymo, but Apple is more likely to choose to land a personal self-driving car.
There is also a saying that Apple will not give up on the two routes of autonomous vehicle fleets and personal autonomous vehicles, because it can accumulate operational experience and data faster, which is convenient for the launch of personal autonomous vehicles.
Vehicles in both landing modes will be iteratively updated based on the corresponding prototype.
The following is some of the specific information of the prototype disclosed by Auto Heart according to foreign media EEtimes, which is excerpted as follows:
The original prototype will have a range of more than 400 miles; fully unlock the L1-L3 level of automatic driving capabilities, equipped with a driver monitoring system;
The second-generation prototype will have a longer range of 450 miles, equipped with high-quality audio and video systems and urban L4 level autonomous driving capabilities, further enriching the vehicle-machine ecology;
The range of the third-generation prototype will be increased to 500 miles, and the range of L4 autonomous driving functions will be expanded, and it will be equipped with an autonomous vehicle ecosystem.
The iteration time of the prototype car will be greatly shortened, taking Apple's delivery of the real car to the user as a reference, pushing forward 18 months to have the first prototype car out, and then completing an iterative update every six months.
In terms of self-driving fleets, it is not clear whether Apple will get involved in Robotaxi and self-driving freight.
But I believe that Apple will launch the Robotaxi business, because the experience and data accumulated by Robotaxi will feed back into passenger cars.
Autonomous fleet models will also undergo three generations of updates based on the corresponding prototypes.
The first generation of fleets was initially operated by safety officers and gradually transitioned to autonomous driving and remote system operation.
The second-generation fleet will gradually introduce a remote control system to achieve L4 level automatic driving in a limited scenario, and the specific details will be subject to the relevant regulations of the operating area.
The three generations of the fleet will realize the synergy of automatic driving and remote control, and the area where L4 automatic driving can be used will be further expanded, and the vehicle and machine ecology and related service products will be further expanded.
It is believed that Apple will build a brand of autonomous driving commercial fleets in the future, and will also cooperate with travel platforms such as Lyft and Uber to launch its own fleet.
Compared with commercial fleets, Apple's passenger cars will be launched slightly later, and will continue the consistent user strategy: focusing on individual consumers of high-quality products.
4
Strong hands, can the glory be replicated again?
Based on the above information, Apple Auto is expected to launch a prototype in September 2022 and a new car in 2024 at the latest, 2025, which will be a big era of competition between autonomous driving capabilities.
At present, the automatic driving ability of electric vehicles has become the top priority of many car companies and autonomous driving technology companies, and some models have already possessed L2+ level automatic driving capabilities and are steadily advancing towards higher-level automatic driving capabilities.
At CES 2022, Mobileye and Extreme Krypton have announced that they will cooperate to develop a new consumer-grade pure electric vehicle with L4 autonomous driving capabilities, and this model is expected to be launched in the Chinese market as early as 2024, which is expected to become the world's first consumer-grade autonomous vehicle with L4 autonomous driving capabilities.
Volvo also said at CES 2022 that it will launch a new pure electric SUV equipped with The Ride Pilot function, which can support highly autonomous driving in an unsupervised state, freeing owners from driving and spending extra time on reading, socializing, writing and other activities.
Personal consumption-grade self-driving cars will become a new point of competition, and Apple cars are already facing many potential competitors before they are born.
The fierce character Weilai ET5 relies on "technology" to rob people from BMW's turf
Huawei's second stick of HI standard: Changan's high-end model Avita 11 entered the field
Xiaopeng automatic driving, the first domestic mass production?