Apple, which is considered to be the only one that can challenge Tesla, has recently been rumored to have disbanded and plans to run aground.
Apple also has a bottleneck?
If you think about it from the level of the car, it is true that Apple has not yet had a formed model car, and even for a long time in the future, it will not necessarily have. But if you look at the mobile phone level, Apple's car blueprint has been at least half completed.
Not long ago, on the occasion of Geely's high-profile announcement of Meizu, founder Li Shufu said an intriguing sentence: the improvement of smart phones determines the improvement of the car machine, and the improvement of the car machine determines the improvement of the smart cockpit.
The three electric systems, unmanned driving, and intelligent cockpits are known as the three cornerstones of the intelligent car era, and the importance is no less than the three major parts of the fuel vehicle era, such as the chassis, engine, and gearbox.
Apple's plans to build cars have run aground, supposedly stuck on driverless technology routes; and if you look at another focus - smart cockpits, Apple has completed almost all the layouts, only to load the car.
A when the phone "takes over" the car
What is a "smart cockpit"? In layman's terms, it is to use a series of intelligent means and technical integration to allow users to enjoy all functions and entertainment experiences, including unmanned driving.
This must meet at least a few characteristics: good voice control, many applications, strong chip computing power, good screen feedback, strong signal instructions...
Wait, isn't this the smartphone it is now?
Some people say that the so-called smart car is to install four wheels for the smartphone. This analogy is not accurate, it should be: the so-called smart cockpit, that is, the smartphone can be directly installed on the car's dashboard and center console.
Users who have feelings for machinery often complain: What is a smart car? Isn't it just a PAD for the central control? Isn't it more screens than anyone else? LOW！
Yes, "mounting PAD" is indeed the most effective implementation path for smart cockpits, but there is a natural BUG in such a method, that is, to meet the current needs, but with the degree of intelligence of the car is getting higher and higher, the amount of data that needs to be processed will increase geometrically, and the chip computing power at that time is bound to be unable to meet the processing needs at that time. Then, no matter how smart the car was advocated at that time, it was no different from an enlarged version of the brick at that time.
From the development efficiency of the entire industry, from "then" to "then" may only be three or five years, or even only two or three years.
Nowadays, many users who are brave enough to try early on "at that time" can't help but complain that "cars are getting more and more stuck" after only a year, turning into "card" cars, and have not dared to use and upgrade the so-called smart car machine casually.
This makes the "experience life" of the car significantly shorter. In the era of fuel vehicles, although the models have been iterated one after another, your six-speed transmission can fight for another ten years, but today's "smart screen" does not give you the opportunity to die, only leaves the risk of death.
And the car as a whole product, with the times to replace the entire car machine and intelligent cockpit even if it is feasible in the "after-sales", the cost will also make many people prohibitive.
Therefore, some people have come up with an idea: now electric vehicles can remove the battery, directly make the smart cockpit from the beginning to be removable, isn't it good?
Wait, isn't this still the smartphone it is today?
Second, let the mobile phone "smart cockpit"
Since Apple developed chips, many views have been puzzled: Crazy? Even if the iPhone and iPad all reach the level of productivity, how meaningful is it? The vast majority of users don't need it.
be. But what if Apple's real intention is to let users take over the car directly in the role of smart cockpit device through iPhones and iPads?
At this time, the great significance of Apple's chip computing power is self-evident.
Didn't you say that the central control of a smart car is a pad? Wouldn't it be better to install an iPad with counter-computing power directly?
Doing so addresses at least two crucial pain points.
The first is the follow-up upgrade of the smart cockpit. Software upgrade traffic is expensive, hardware upgrade cost is expensive; the former is due to the communication provider to the user and car companies of the traffic billing method is completely different, and the current smart cockpit software upgrade can only comply with the "car company - communication provider" public-to-public business principles, the current small volume of upgrade is acceptable, when the future data volume doubles, the overall traffic cost for car companies will be likely to approach the battery cost, which is completely unaffordable.
The upgrade of hardware is more troublesome, not only to have offline supporting services similar to 4S stores, but also to purchase mainstream chips, graphics cards, screens and other hardware, manpower, material resources and multiple accumulated high costs, even if the car company is willing, users may not like it.
But if you use a phone or tablet that can be removed and connected at any time to act as a smart cockpit for a car, both of these problems can be solved. First of all, the cost of traffic is almost negligible, because the user can completely bring the mobile device to the wifi environment to upgrade; followed by hardware change, the current user replacement rate of mobile phones and tablets is average of two years, which is also in line with the progress of the technology industry, when the user only needs to use the cost of a mobile phone or tablet, always can enjoy the best smart cockpit experience, that is not to keep the car in the best intelligent state?
The second is the application ecology of smart cars. Many people in the industry imagine that the best profit model for smart cars is not to sell cars, but to provide various application services like Android and IOS, the ideal is very full, and the reality is impossible.
Because the formation of the application ecology must have a key premise, that is, the user volume is large enough. All kinds of platforms and content applications for automobiles need to be developed and adapted centrally, especially the major car companies are not the same, and the automotive applications are not facing the unified situation of Android or IOS, but are developed for different car companies. If your smart car sells more than half a million vehicles a year, there is still a driving force for the platform and content providers, but if you only sell a hundred thousand to two hundred thousand a year, it is a waste of time.
Therefore, most of the various in-vehicle applications in the smart cars we see on the market today are basically bought by car companies from platforms and content providers, and car companies spend money to let each other tailor-made development for themselves, which is a huge cost expenditure.
This requires us to think, after mobile phones and TVs, do we still need to continue to develop a new ecosystem for a new smart device?
Obviously, the best solution is to directly transplant the ready-made smartphone ecosystem.
This is back to the end of the smart cockpit, and the origin - wouldn't it be better to use a phone or tablet directly? This is why Apple has completely realized the consistency of iPhone and iPad from the source of the system in recent years.
In fact, in addition to Apple, many car companies and mobile phone companies also think like this. This is why in the past year, we have not only seen mobile phone manufacturers build cars, but car companies have also chosen to build smart phones.
This also explains another confusion - car companies like Geely, Weilai, Tesla to build mobile phones, where is the confidence to ensure sales?
In fact, they will not seek to maximize the market size like the traditional sales model of Xiaomi and Huawei, on the contrary, they only need to meet their own owners - when buying a car, they will get a native brand smartphone, which is the core component of the smart cockpit in the car, and can be taken away as a mobile smart device when leaving.
Zhang Xiaolong once said that the best product should be like a car, running out and leaving. Because ninety percent of the car is idle, but people can't live without it.
When the mobile phone smart cockpit, or smart cockpit mobile phone, then the car after "use up and go", it is still with the user through the detachable and connected mobile device.
Of course, this is still not the end of the problem.
There will be people who wonder: the iPad as a "central control screen" can still be understood, but the mobile phone is too small, right?
This is why in today's folding screen mobile phone in full swing, Apple has always been moving. Because for the concept of folding screens, Apple did not limit itself to entertainment and office fields at the beginning, but wanted to make it directly connected with smart cars.
When the "unfolded" mobile phone can directly act as the screen of the cockpit of the car, is the folding screen not so chicken?
Not long ago, the relevant policy proposed that the car can be allowed to have no steering wheel under the corresponding conditions, and in the future, more and more unnecessary hardware will be cleared one by one, replaced by an integrated mobile device.
This will be a two-way street between mobile phones and cars.
Apple's car construction does not start from re-building the car, but from the re-manufacturing of mobile phones.
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