【Core Intelligent Driving】The Apple Car team has long been disbanded? But the car is "very appetizing to Apple"

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Jiwei Network reported that Tianfeng International analyst Guo Mingji recently broke the news on social networks that Apple's Apple Car team has been disbanded for a period of time.

In the past 8 years, Apple has invested in and acquired related companies, involving machine vision, autonomous driving, travel services, map navigation, etc., which are regarded as paving the way for future car projects. After experiencing a series of personnel changes in poaching and poaching, Apple's car team has lost a lot of personnel, and cooperation with car companies has also been rejected, is Apple Apple Car really "stillborn"?

The car-making team that has been "diving"

In 2014, the Titan Project, known as Apple Car's internal research and development project, was launched. Since then, Apple Car has been in a "diving" state, and it was not until the past two years that rumors about Apple Car began to emerge. But obviously, Apple's road to making cars is not going well.

Joe Bass, head of software engineering project management for Apple's automotive team, left Apple in January to join Meta as director of PROJECT management for VR technology. Dave Scott, who led the team of automotive-related robotics, Jaime Waydo, who led the team on the safety and regulation of self-driving cars, Dave Rosenthal, senior director of apple autonomous systems, and Benjamin Lyon, a project manager, all left in early 2021; Doug Field, apple automotive team leader, left last September with Michael, who was in charge of hardware Schwekutsch also left.

As a leading consumer electronics company, in order to cope with the slowdown in the future growth of consumer electronics, finding a second growth curve is naturally the goal of Apple's efforts. Cook once said at the press conference that he wanted to change the world's perception of Apple as an "iPhone company", after which Apple began to focus on services.

In a sense, the car of the future is a new body of hardware, software and services, which is obviously very appetizing to Apple. Some media reporters have asked Cook about Apple's car, he did not answer directly, but said that "we are keen to integrate hardware, software and services, and find their integration points, so that it is possible to create miracles."

Do Tier 1, or go off the road to build a car?

Zhao Yi, an analyst at Jiwei Consulting, believes that in the stage of micro-innovation of mobile phones entering the stock market, intelligent electric vehicles are indeed the most certainty of the industrial change direction in the next decade that can be seen. As the world's largest technology company by market value, the future is likely to participate in the car-making feast, but for now, in 2025, large-scale mass production, this time is more urgent.

Tesla's success has proved that electric vehicles are profitable, and most importantly, its strong software and hardware comprehensive strength is a killer tool to shake off traditional car companies. From this point of view, Apple may be the next "Tesla". Apple's A series, W series, S series chips constitute the technical base of smart phones, smart headphones, smart watches three categories, in addition to today's desktop core M series, Apple has achieved all the bottom of the device, for the future integration of operating systems to eliminate the final barrier. The self-developed chip is the main way for Apple to identify control technology. From processors to power management, to baseband chips, and even the acquisition of small fabs for development, Apple is no longer a novice on the road to self-development.

The development trend of the future car is that components, chips and software will gradually occupy an important position, and some research institutions say that these costs will account for 40% of the BOM cost in 2030. Rather than saying that Apple has an absolutely solid foundation, it is better to say that electric vehicles give Apple unlimited imagination to expand its business.

As far as Apple's current strength is concerned, retreating to Tier 1 will inevitably face a completely different situation from directly manufacturing cars, but Zhao Yi believes that with Apple's software and hardware research and development capabilities and its excellent supply chain management capabilities, manufacturing vehicles can highlight apple's value. If you only do Tier 1, then it is bound to be an open hardware and software platform. Combined with Apple's previous development path of iPhone and iOS, it should not be the most suitable for Apple.

He said that whether it is manufacturing, chips, software, should not be the core elements that restrict Apple's car manufacturing.

Difficult or in forming a supply chain

So what are the factors that will delay apple car construction? Maybe it's the difficulty of building a supply chain.

Tesla CEO Musk has revealed that in 2013 he sought to sell Tesla, which was in trouble at the time, to Apple, but Cook was reluctant to show up. Apple doesn't intend to enter the automotive space by acquiring companies like Tesla. Analysts believe that the reason why Apple is unwilling to enter the automotive industry by acquiring a ready-made company should be more out of the consideration of closed-loop control of the entire product strategy, which is most conducive to its first discovery of product and strategic problems or vulnerabilities. This is also Apple's consistent style of treating product ecology.

Apple's tough and strict, extremely quality-oriented supply chain management is from Cook's hand, and the right to speak is above any enterprise, but the huge profit return and stable and large-scale product shipments make various companies want to stop and only want to break into apple supply chain.

Unlike the mobile phone industry, the automobile industry has always been considered to be a very high threshold industry, and even Tesla is struggling to "get out of prison", and it is extremely difficult to form a supply chain that can be mass-produced.

Last year, Reuters reported that Apple contacted BMW, Hyundai, Nissan and Toyota to explore joint development and cooperative production agreements. During this period, Apple's own vehicle hardware research and development department is reported to have almost ceased operations around 2016. But some of the big automakers didn't want to become subcontractors of Apple's automakers, so Apple's negotiations with automakers failed and they decided to develop Apple cars on their own.

Apple's problems with NINGD Times and BYD over battery supply also came to a large standstill last year, as they refused to form teams in the United States and build factories that only serve Apple.

Earlier this year, the Nikkei reported that Apple's cooperation with Sandian, one of Japan's largest auto air conditioning parts suppliers, failed because of Sandian cash flow problems; several South Korean companies rushed to supply parts for Apple's cars, but some of them abandoned cooperation because of Apple's increasing secrecy measures.

The automobile industry has shown an upward integration trend driven by the new "four modernizations", but Apple's appeal does not seem to have the same effect in the mobile phone industry in the early stage of change. On the one hand, traditional car companies are also in the process of transformation, have announced their respective electric vehicle development plans, they will not give up the big cake of electric vehicles to become the "knife and fork" of the new forces of car manufacturing; on the other hand, in the current software-defined car, the added value of vehicle manufacturing will only become lower and lower, which has also become a key factor for traditional car companies not to become a foundry role.

In addition, Apple's car has been in a relatively silent state, no one can guarantee that the success of consumer electronics will repeat itself on the car, and even Apple has so far been silent about car building. This is also an unknown risk for companies that are already in the automotive supply chain, and it makes sense to stop and wait.

Zhao Yi said that although electric vehicles are simpler in structure and have a much lower entry threshold than traditional fuel vehicles, their supply chain management difficulties are still much more complicated than mobile phones.

Although the negative news continues, but Apple's "Titan" may not fall, on the comprehensive quality, Apple is the most likely to break through the dark horse in a group of new car-making forces, and its strength is enough to prove that it can.

After creating the iPhone — the magic of two-finger zoom, AirPods — to open the TWS headset era, macbooks — hidden in the envelope of surprises, expect Apple to surprise the world again and change the world. (Proofreading/Sharon)