With a tweet by Tianfeng International analyst Guo Mingxi, "The team of Apple Car has been disbanded, and if you want to mass-produce Apple Car in 2025, you need to reorganize your team within 3 to 6 months." "Apple made a car to reproduce the storm. As for whether the revelation is true or false, there have been statistics before that Guo Mingxi's accuracy of the apple revelation is 76.6%.
Apple's car-making plan began in 2013, and in the past few years, there have been rumors of Apple's car-making, but there is very little information about the progress that is really public, but it is not uncommon for people in charge to adjust and senior executives to leave.
On the one hand, there is the great fanfare of the new car technology forces, and on the other hand, the silence of the technology giant Apple. In stark contrast, it seems that even fruit fans have lost patience with Apple cars. What is the reason for apple cars dragging on and on?
The team is good but unstable
Kuo said the Apple car team had been disbanded for some time. Right now, apple car is led by Kevin Lynch, Apple's vice president of technology, who took over the electric car project last year. Lynch has been with Apple since 2013 after being an Adobe executive known for his work on the Apple Watch.
In January, Joe Bass, apple car's head of software engineering, left, and most of the team members have left. Joe Bass worked at Apple for 7 years, reporting to Doug Field during his tenure, joining Meta, which has poached more than 100 former Apple employees.
In recent years, the core employees of Apple's automotive business line have been turbulent.
In February 2021, Benjamin Lyon, the original team of Apple Cars, left to join space company Astra. He served as Sensor R&D Manager for the Titan project, reporting to Doug Field;
In June, Dave Scott, the automotive robotics team, joined medical company Hyperfine; Jaime Waydo of the autonomous vehicle safety and regulation team joined self-driving startup Cavnue; and in September, Doug Field, the former head of Apple Motors, left.
Doug Field
Doug Field was previously a vice president of Hardware Engineering for Apple's Mac, went to Tesla in 2013 to be responsible for the production and driving control of new cars, returned to Apple again in 2018, and in September 2021, was poached by Ford as chief advanced technology and embedded systems officer, reporting directly to Ford's CEO. Then Apple took over with Kevin Lynch.
Switching back and forth between the core figures is not only not conducive to the unification of the concept of car building, but also not conducive to the steady advancement of the project.
The supply chain is unresolved
Although since the day of making the car, there have been rumors from time to time that Apple and car companies are in close negotiations, but to this day, Apple wants to find car companies to do the work.
As a software system research and development company, Apple has a complete supply chain system at the smartphone level, but it has to re-"disk logic" when it plugs in smart cars.
In those years, car companies that had gossiped with Apple were not in the minority, Nissan, Hyundai, Volkswagen and so on. In early 2021, Apple negotiated with Hyundai and invested 4 trillion won (about 23.2 billion yuan) in Kia Motors. However, soon after this news was exposed, the news of the suspension of the cooperation project came.
Hyundai executives revealed in foreign media interviews that there are differences over potential cooperation with Apple, and they are worried that Apple will dilute the self-worth of the Hyundai brand and make Hyundai a foundry from now on.
This concern represents the core contradiction of cooperation between car companies and Apple.
Volkswagen CEO Diess once said that Apple's car manufacturing is a huge challenge to car companies, and he believes that the automotive industry is different from the technology industry, and it is difficult for Apple to become the leader in the automotive field overnight.
Akio Toyoda said, "Once they start building cars, I hope that they (Apple) will realize that they must be prepared to deal with customers and various changes in the next 40 years." ”
In the field of smart phones, Apple and Apple occupy an absolute dominant position in the mobile phone industry chain. Raw materials and parts from different suppliers are sent to the foundry for assembly. And Cook has been adhering to the "reduce inventory, reduce warehouse" approach in managing the supply chain, so the supplier competition is more intense.
It can be seen that Apple is so close to the supply chain management, but also has strict control over it, and has always occupied a dominant position. But when it comes to the automotive sector, it is not easy to establish an equally complete supply chain.
Recently, "Fruit Chain" Luxun Precision and Chery Automobile announced cooperation in car manufacturing, and the outside world has said that there is a suspicion of car OEM for Apple. However, the people of Luxun Precision responded that due to the situation involving large customers and because of the signing of confidentiality agreements, this information could not be disclosed.
Another fruit chain giant, Foxconn, built the car road earlier, as Apple's close foundry, Foxconn was tightly held back by Apple. At the time of industrial transformation, Apple's foundry business alone has become unstable. Therefore, many attempts have been made in car building, investing in Byton, holding hands with Geely and so on. On March 3, Foxconn's first electric bus Model T delivered 30 to 50 units, and the first delivery users were Kaohsiung Passenger Transport Company in Taiwan.
Now that the fruit chain giant is ready on the track of car building, it is more likely that Apple will be tied again once it is out of the car. However, according to Apple's positioning, the quality requirements of the car will not be low, and if it is replaced by a complex automobile production track, Apple will want to maintain a "proud head", and the management of the supply chain will be more difficult.
Barriers to the transformation of industry giants
Eight years of car manufacturing history, so far has not produced a finished product, which inevitably makes everyone anxious for Apple.
Just when Apple is hesitating, the momentum of domestic technology companies to build cars has been rolled out, Baidu, Huawei, Xiaomi, 360, etc. have already taken action in the field of smart cars, and will show results in the past two years.
On the model, Baidu chose to build a joint venture with car companies.
Baidu and Geely established a joint venture company Jidu Automobile, and insisted on building an automobile robot that had never been seen before. In less than a year since its establishment, Jidu Auto side first unveiled the software-integrated prototype SIMUCar, and then unveiled the first automotive robot concept car at the Beijing Auto Show. Jidu CEO Xia Yiping once said, "Jidu is not a car or electric vehicle in the traditional sense, the future unmanned car or the future intelligent car, in fact, is essentially a four-wheeled robot."
Concept map of a car robot in Jidu
On the ecology, Huawei chose to build a car through a "shell".
Huawei's model is to empower car companies, implement the Hongmeng operating system into the car, open up Huawei's all-scenario ecology, and connect all terminal devices such as home travel. Huawei's newly released all-scenario ecology, from watches to mobile phones to cars, can all penetrate Huawei's Hongmeng system, and Huawei is also using this to make AITU Q&A M5 a car with more "Huawei" attributes, achieving "the same soul, different forms".
AITO asks the M5
The latest AITO M5 is Huawei's participation since its development, and it is the second car cooperated by Huawei and Cialis.
If Apple adopts the model of co-construction with car companies, will it have already been out of the car?
Just on March 19, Reuters reported that Porsche CEO Oliver Blume said at a press conference the day before that at the end of last year, Porsche personnel had traveled to the United States to discuss cooperation projects with Apple. "We already have Apple CarPlay features, and we're going to build on that... Porsche and Apple work closely together, and the two companies are on the same channel. ”
Oliver Blume, Chairman of the Executive Board of Porsche Worldwide (left)
As a result, rumors of a joint car have risen again, and Oliver Blume went on to say: "It is too early to make a decision on future cooperation projects. It is reported that the cooperation between the two sides is more likely to focus on software projects.
Che Yun summary
Apple's pride is not without reason, "once into apple deep like the sea" is derived from its strong ecosystem, the ultimate user experience. But in the most complex intelligent terminals - automotive products, Apple seems to be hesitant.
Perhaps because the pursuit of the ultimate has affected the progress of development, perhaps the persistence of the "soul" has hindered the possibility of Apple and car companies to build new cars.
At apple's spring conference in 2022, there are no more surprises, and Apple is also facing pressure for product innovation. Moreover, under the general trend of industrial transformation, the "stability strategy" is losing its advantages, not only car-making projects, but also Apple needs a new unlock key.