In Xiao Lei's view, Apple's "Titan" project, Jia Yueting's Faraday Future, and Evergrande Automobile, which claims to sell 1 million vehicles in 2025, can be called the three new car-making forces that have experienced the most twists and turns.
Among them, the protagonist FF 91 in lao Jia's dream of going to the United States to build a car will be delivered as soon as July this year after holding N conferences. Evergrande Automobile's first model, Hengchi 5, which released 9 new energy vehicles in one go that year, has also rolled off the production line. However, apple's most powerful "Titan" project has come to an end before it can start.
On March 15, Guo Mingxi, an analyst at Tianfeng International Securities, broke the news on Twitter: Apple's auto team has been disbanded for some time. If it wants to mass-produce cars in 2025, apple needs to restructure its team in 3-6 months. You know, if you say which analyst is well-known to the extent that he is out of the circle because of the news of Apple, Guo Mingxi said second, I am afraid that no one dares to call the first.
It can be seen that the credibility of the information exposed by Guo Mingji is extremely high. If the information he broke out is true, it means that we may not be able to see Apple cars in 2025 as Apple expects.
The Titans turned, and things didn't go well
As early as 2014, Apple launched the "Titan" program, intending to launch a new energy vehicle that can compete with Tesla. It has used huge resources for this car-making plan, and in just half a year, it has gathered engineers from Chrysler, Tesla, Ford and other car companies in the car-making team of the "Titan" plan. At that time, Apple's car-making team under the name of "Titan" was more than 1,000 people.
It is undeniable that the "Titan" plan from 2014 to 2016 is not only financially strong, but also ambitious, but it also has its own shortcomings that are difficult to make up. As we all know, Apple, as a technology giant that lacks manufacturing experience, even needs to find a professional foundry for products such as mobile phones and tablets.
The automobile manufacturing industry is a well-known asset-heavy industry, so Apple wants to enter the car industry and naturally has to find a quality partner in the automotive field. According to Japan's Nikkei Shimbun, Apple has negotiated with at least six automakers, including BMW, Daimler, Toyota, and Volkswagen.
Unfortunately, perhaps apple "titan" plan ambitions in the automotive field frightened a number of well-known car manufacturers, perhaps the arrogant traditional car companies disdain to use their valuable production capacity to make wedding clothes for Apple cars, they invariably refused to cooperate with Apple, and this large car-making team was shelved a year later because of disagreements at the top of the team.
Among them, Steve Zaddski, the former head of the "Titan" program, believes that the top priority of the "Titan" program is to find an excellent partner to develop a car product with semi-autonomous driving capabilities. Jonathan Ive believes that the Titan plan needs to build a fully autonomous driving platform for the future of mobility.
For the serious disagreements that arose between the top echelons of the Titans program team, Apple CEO Tim Cook finally chose to stand for Jonathan Ivey. Cook believes that in the future, software will become an important part of the car, and autonomous driving will become more important, so Apple will focus on the research and development of self-driving technology. So far, Apple has accelerated its pace in the field of autonomous driving, and the "Titan" program has completed its first turn.
Project Titan = Driverless? We overestimate Apple
According to the 2021 autonomous driving data released by the California Transportation Administration DMV, Apple's self-driving vehicles will travel a total mileage of 13,272 miles in 2021, but the number of takeovers is as many as 663 times, and on average, every 20 miles need to be manually taken over, which is the largest number of takeovers of all companies that submit road test reports to the California Transportation Authority.
In contrast, Toyota, as a traditional car company, has a total mileage of 13,959 miles in California in 2021, which is equivalent to Apple's self-driving vehicles, but Toyota has taken over 419 times, with an average of only one takeover every 33 miles. Compared with Toyota, which does not have an innate advantage in the cutting-edge technology of automatic driving, Apple, which has been struggling with autonomous driving technology in recent years, has lost a little.
It is worth mentioning that in California, where self-driving giants are gathered, the best performance of the average takeover mileage is an autonomous driving company from China, Antu AutoX. It travels a total of 50,108 miles a year, but has only been taken over once in the year.
Although Apple has never said what kind of car it wants to build, and from 2014 to today, not even an official rendering has been exposed, but judging by the hundreds of car patents it has published in recent years, Apple cars will be a high-tech product for L4-level autonomous driving.
With Apple's current self-driving capabilities, does it really have the strength to make a mass production car with L4 level autonomous driving capabilities on the road? Little Ray was skeptical. You know, even if the self-driving ability is as strong as AutoX, its technology is only in the testing stage, not to mention the Apple car that has a cloud mud difference in the field of automatic driving?
When Apple's development in the field of autonomous driving was frustrated, it finally remembered its original intention to enter the automotive field in January 2021, restarted its car-making plan, and successively hooked up with Hyundai Kia Group and Nissan Automobile. From the current point of view, Apple's car-making plan has repeated the mistakes of 6 years ago, and the two car companies have not agreed to cooperate with it.
From 2014 to 2022, Apple's entry into the automotive field has reached its eighth year. However, for Apple's "Titan" program, these 8 years can be described as a bad thing. Car manufacturing, there is no traditional car company willing to cooperate with it; engaged in automatic driving, automatic driving technology is relatively backward.
In addition, Apple's repeated jumps between the "Titan" plan to build a car or engage in self-driving technology not only wasted the best time to enter the automotive field, but also achieved nothing in these two aspects, but also led to the dispersion of people within the "Titan" plan and the frequent departure of executives.
The Titans were defeated by the uncertainty of the people
In Xiao Lei's view, the reason why the ambitious Apple Car fell to this point at that time has a great relationship with the fact that it has been wavering and repeatedly jumping in the development and manufacturing of the whole vehicle and automatic driving technology since its establishment nearly 8 years ago.
Although Apple Car has wasted 8 years, as long as its follow-up progress is efficient enough and the product force is strong enough, then for the target user group of Apple Cars, Apple Cars with strong brand appeal is still a good meal and not afraid of late. You know, Xiaomi Auto and Baidu Jidu Auto are all latecomers in the new car-making forces, but they also have unlimited imagination space.
In addition, the "Titan" project is an apple's 8-year-long, heavily funded car project, which has obtained hundreds of advanced automotive technology patents, and it is these technology patents that have brought unlimited imagination to the vast number of melon-eating masses. Therefore, Xiao Lei did not believe that there was nothing to do in terms of technical reserves. However, after the core members of the "Titan" program lost their humanity, the executives who left one after another gave Apple Cars a fatal blow.
As early as 2016, when Titan planned to switch from car manufacturing to self-driving technology, it had already lost a large number of cutting-edge talents that had been previously recruited at high prices. In 2019, Apple Cars once again laid off a large number of employees, this time laying off another 200 employees of the Titan program.
You know, being able to enter Apple and participate in the "Titan" program itself shows that these employees have considerable professional ability, and Apple's several layoffs are simply to make wedding dresses for other companies. Today, many of the cutting-edge talents in various fields who were once fired by Apple from the Titan program have become mainstays of other self-driving startups.
In addition to ordinary employees, Apple can be said to have recruited many heavyweight executives from other car companies for the "Titan" plan, and almost lost many executives. The departure of the executives has made the "Titan" plan float.
In 2016, Steve Zaderski, one of the founders of the Titan project, left Apple for a shift to autonomous driving, a job taken over by Chris Pollett, Apple's vice president of the car factory poached from Tesla.
In addition, in just 7 months in 2021, the Titan program has left 4 executives.
In February, Benjamin Lyon, senior sensor manager who has been in a key position in the team since the Titan program was launched in 2014, left Apple to become the chief engineer of aerospace technology company Astra. Also in February, Jamie Weedow, head of Apple's self-driving car safety and regulation team, moved to startup Cavnue as chief technology officer.
In May, Dave Scott, head of Apple's automotive-related robotics team, left Apple to become CEO of Hyperfine, a healthcare company that develops nuclear magnetic resonance systems. In September, Doug Field, Apple's head of car manufacturing programs, moved to Ford Motor Co. to serve as Ford's chief technology officer and embedded systems officer.
In Xiao Lei's view, the reason why these top bosses who have already achieved fame will join the "Titan" program is not only for a salary, but also for a position. They spent time and energy gambling their life's reputation into Apple for a common ideal and goal, hoping to create an epoch-making car product, and they regarded this work as a grand achievement in life.
However, as they lose confidence in the titans, which have repeatedly jumped and been frustrated, they will naturally be unable to bear the loneliness and no longer be willing to waste time on this unreliable project. Since the titans have lost confidence in the project and have repeatedly left, the impact on the low-level employees can be imagined.
Therefore, in Xiao Lei's view, the end of Apple's "Titan" plan is doomed when the car-building plan is restarted, and it is doomed when it hits walls everywhere and executives frequently leave.
summary
Guo Mingqi gave his opinion on Apple's car at the same time as breaking the news, saying that if he wants to mass-produce cars in 2025, then Apple needs to reorganize the team within 3-6 months. In the eyes of many people, Guo Mingji's view may be more pessimistic, but Xiao Lei's view of Apple Cars is more pessimistic.
The continental art of war has clouds: one drum blows, then declines, and three exhausts. In Xiao Lei's view, Apple Motors, which has experienced 8 years of social beatings, and has been repeatedly frustrated and lost, has lost the best time and the courage to start again.
In fact, Xiao Lei wrote as early as last year "4 executives left in 7 months, is there still a drama in Apple Cars?" At the time of the book, I already had a premonition that apple cars might have problems. You know, if only one or two executives run away, it can be understood, but like the "Titan" plan to get together of executives running, this is very abnormal.
In terms of technology, Apple has never said what car it wants to build, and almost all evaluations of Apple cars come from speculation from the outside world.
According to many people's ideas, Apple wants to build an epoch-making driverless car, but Xiao Lei believes that it has not had such capabilities so far, and only Germany has opened up the right of way for L3-level self-driving cars. Therefore, the L4 level self-driving car right of way cannot be opened before 2025, and Apple cars are to be released in 2025, so naturally it cannot be too advanced products.
In addition, if Apple Cars is going to develop a car product with semi-autonomous driving capabilities as envisioned by Steve Zadski in 2016, then this product has lost its due competitiveness in 2025, 8 years later, and Apple Cars' efforts to develop such a product will become meaningless.
If the information that Guo Mingqi broke is true, then Xiao Lei believes that Apple and its "Titan" plan, which has been spreading wildly in the industry for 8 years, have become history, and there is no need and possibility of resurrection in a short period of time. In fact, for apple cars that are difficult to produce, it may be the best choice to temporarily put down the car business that has not yet had time to start.
You know, when the Titan program is full of talent, apple is not lacking in technology and ambition, but from the beginning to the end, it does not understand what it really wants. Therefore, instead of rushing to the shelves in order to launch a new car in 2025, Apple Cars should be another shame in rational thinking.
Note: The material for this article comes from the Internet