Author | Yuanyi
Source| Jiguo Editorial Department
This year, Apple's car has become a topic of saliva in the industry, and it will be taken out to discuss every once in a while. From 2014, when Apple announced the "Titan Plan" to build a car, the project seems to have entered a difficult birth, and the prototype car is not even a shadow. #汽车科技要闻 #
Perhaps afraid that everyone will not have confidence in waiting, Apple officials will not hurry to add another "real hammer" to the car-making project.
Recently, Apple streaming media Apple TV+ launched an official original movie "Swan Elegy", which shows an AppleCar prototype car that can drive itself and has no steering wheel, while the interaction in the car is all based on the AR headset, the car logo design is an italic "S", the headlights and taillights are basically the same design, the overall shape is very rounded, the air resistance will be smaller, and it will have a more futuristic sci-fi sense.
The front face has a penetrating micro-curved headlight, which is very recognizable. The doors are fully automatically inductive, the wheels are the same as those exposed earlier, and the specific shape is hidden.
The interior of the vehicle is very simple, the style is low-key and modern, and the C-pillar part is also embellished with light strips. There are four seats in the car and are seated face-to-face. There is not even a screen in the car, and the interaction required in the car is all done by the AR contact lenses worn by the occupants, which also coincides with the AR glasses that Apple is laying out.
From the top of the roof, the car has 3 transparent sunroof design, a bit of a convertible car that feels like, although the style is very modern, but it feels that the privacy will be almost.
In the film, the car spends most of its time driving at night, and you can see that the rear of the car also uses through-type red taillights, and the streamlined design looks very sporty.
Through Apple's "entrained bootleg" movie, we can find that the Automation of apple Car prototypes is extremely high, and by the way, we can glimpse some of Apple's next layout direction in travel.
Not only that, according to South Korean media, apple employees visited South Korea last month and held discussions with a number of Korean parts companies, mainly electronic component companies with mass production experience, the purpose is to build an automotive supply chain. If the vehicle supplier docks smoothly, we should be able to see what this AppleCar will look like in the end.
So the problem is, Apple Car is definitely not willing to do Tesla 2.0, what it wants is to become a subversion of the entire automotive industry like the iPhone, it must be "unique" leaning on, from the multiple patents applied by Apple can also be glimpsed.
Overall, Apple's research and development on car patents is gradual. Most of the patents it applied for from 2014 to 2017 were batteries and lidar (LiDAR), visual recognition-related technologies, and there were less than 40 patents in the specific field of car manufacturing.
It was not until after 2019 that various details about car manufacturing began to appear, including multiple patents on body structure, interior, seats, etc., including automatic driving, body control and other patents reached 72.
Among them, there are also a lot of avant-garde ideas. For example, in 2018, Apple applied for VR-related patents such as "enhanced virtual display technology", "immersive virtual display technology", and "enhanced virtual instrument technology".
Judging from the information released, with the blessing of VR technology, in addition to working and meeting remotely while driving, people can also reduce motion sickness by adjusting the virtual environment.
In May 2020, Apple also filed a patent called "Hidden User Interface." Based on the patent, Apple Cars can make all the touch interfaces hidden, and use new technologies to make them "transparent", only when the user touches the interface, those "transparent materials" will light up and become operable touch screens.
At the same time, it can also allow some hidden cameras in the car to project vehicle information into the cab, so that the driver can understand the relevant information for the first time.
In addition to novelty, Apple has also redesigned the seat belt, which will have buttons that can be quickly operated, such as communication, adjusting the volume, answering calls, Siri, etc., and users can customize the button function.
And the seat belt also has vibration, which will give feedback to passengers in certain scenes.
After the patent is developed, it is time to actually put it into use.
At the beginning of December last year, it was reported that the research and development of the self-driving chip required by Apple's car had been basically completed, and apple was also cooperating with semiconductor design and manufacturing company TSMC to develop a semi-autonomous vehicle and produce Apple Car chips in the United States.
Since Apple has so many "real hammers", why is the progress just like "squeezing toothpaste"?
Although Apple is still independently manufacturing complete vehicles, it also needs the existence of a "Foxconn" in the automotive industry, but Apple has repeatedly encountered a wall when looking for a foundry.
Earlier in 2021, Apple had continuous contact with Hyundai Kia and Nissan, making everyone think that Kia would be responsible for Titan's hardware manufacturing tasks, that is, promising to be a "foundry business".
It was less than a week before Kia dispelled the rumors at the speed of light, and Nissan did not even have a week to directly deny that the two sides had "in-depth contact".
After the continuous setbacks in the search for OEM, Apple has become more determined to do the whole vehicle on its own, and at most find a partner, rather than taking the way of fully entrusting the production of the whole vehicle to a specific manufacturer.
Apple's car-making not only did the cooperation not go well, but also a series of executive departures.
In the first half of 2021, Jamie Weedow, apple's head of autonomous driving safety and regulation, and Dave Scott, head of Titan robotics, left their jobs; in September, Doug Field, who is regarded as the soul of the Titans, also jumped to Ford. Since 2019, Titan's executives have lost 1/3 of them.
Meanwhile, Joe Bass, Apple's head of automotive software engineering, has left. Bass has been apple automation system chief engineering project manager since January 2015, and in January this year, Bass revised linkedIn data to show that he has left. Bass is now Director of VR Technology Project Management at Meta.
According to the report, with the departure of Bass, Apple's automotive management team a year ago almost completely left.
It is not difficult for us to guess that Apple should not have the production capacity of the whole vehicle, so it is also looking for more partners, and the executives continue to leave, which is estimated to be related to this.
Although the road to car building is very bumpy, in the whole process, the face of Apple's car has become clearer, and the price of the model has also been lowered to "medium and high-end", that is, products facing ordinary consumer groups.
Now, rumor has it that a joint venture between LG and Magna is very close to making electric vehicles. Apple is still likely to announce a series of strategic electric vehicle cooperation in 2022 and launch electric vehicles in 2025.
No, Apple still has a way back. In October last year, it was also revealed that Apple was preparing a system called IronHeart for access to the car system CarPlay to achieve interactive interface coverage of the entire car.
This is likely to be apple to prepare for themselves backhand, in case the real car can not be built, at least there is a "trump card" in the hand can be divided into a piece of cake in the smart car industry, always not to lose too ugly.
Looking at the overall situation, from the current competitive environment, even if the market has expectations for Apple cars, this AppleCar may really need to be faster, what do you think?