"I got up early in the morning and rushed to a late market. This is what Yin Tongyue said about Chery New Energy at the 2023 Chery Technology Day, and now it seems that it is just his humble words. In fact, the repeatedly postponed "Apple makes cars" is worthy of this sentence.
On January 23, 2024, the tenth year of Apple's start of car manufacturing, the project was postponed again. Not only will the autonomous driving level of the vehicle be lowered from L4 to L2+, but the release date may be pushed back by another two years to 2028.
For Apple's car, which has repeatedly staged the "ace pigeon" drama, the Chinese do not seem surprised by the news of its postponement. Its popularity on the Internet is much lower than that of Huawei and Xiaomi's new developments in car manufacturing. Correspondingly, in the Chinese auto market, which leads the world in electric intelligence, Chinese users no longer seem to have high expectations for Apple cars. What's more, Apple's Chinese counterparts are becoming more and more comfortable with it. It seems that it is already difficult to find a point in the Apple car that makes them feel stressed.
Apple, the "pioneer" of the smartphone era, is becoming a "follower" and even a "laggard" in the era of smart cars.
A project that started 10 years ago
In April 2014, Musk from across the ocean came to China for the first time. Before he became the richest man at the time, he handed the keys to the Model S to nine Chinese executives, marking Tesla's first entry into China.
A few months later, it was discovered that Apple was hiring engineers related to automotive products, supposedly for a project called Titan. A few months later, the details of the rumors were confirmed by other sources and channels, suggesting that there is some truth to what the reports claim and the name "Project Titan".
At that time, there were also a number of new Chinese car-making forces such as Weilai, Xiaopeng, Ideal, Nezha, Weimar, and LeTV that started at the same time as Apple's car-making. But at that time, people were clearly more optimistic about Apple, which had achieved supremacy in smartphones. Many people expect that the "Apple Car", which has entered the field of fully autonomous driving, will become the next trillion-dollar product after the iPhone.
However, Apple did not rise to become a smart car giant as quickly as the outside world expected, but instead jumped tickets one after another. The project has not only changed several bosses one after another, but has also undergone multiple rounds of layoffs and multiple adjustments to key strategies, resulting in repeated delays in the project. From 2014 to 2018, Apple focused on Level 4 autonomous driving. However, from 2018 to 2021, when L4 autonomous driving could not be implemented for a long time, Apple changed its strategy and developed L4 and L2+ in parallel. In 2021, the intelligent driving route will once again be transformed into L4. But even in China, where intelligent driving is developing most rapidly, the implementation of L4 is still a very challenging thing. Not surprisingly, just yesterday, Apple once again lowered the automatic furniture level of the car to L2+, and the release date was also postponed from 2026 to 2028.
So far, a decade-long Apple car-building project is like a boat that has strayed into the depths of lotus flowers, spinning in place in the sentence "Slow Voice".
Is it a blessing or a curse for Chinese cars?
Despite the twists and turns of Apple's car making, Chinese people who care about China's auto industry still have to ask, is Apple's car manufacturing difficult for ten years a blessing or a curse for Chinese cars?
Ten years ago, if the Apple car could be mass-produced and enter the Chinese market within three years as desired, it would undoubtedly be a dimensionality reduction blow to China's new car-making forces at that time, and its performance in the Chinese market is expected to be comparable to Tesla's with its advanced technology and brand influence. This is obviously not a cause for joy for China's electric smart cars, which are still in their infancy and have mixed results. But on the other hand, Apple, with its strong appeal and industrial chain integration capabilities, will obviously promote public acceptance of new energy vehicles. But all of this was done by Tesla. The absence of Apple does not seem to have adversely affected the booming Chinese market, but has given the budding Chinese car-making new force a period of opportunity for "obscene development".
Now ten years later, China's new energy vehicles have long been different, and their strong competitiveness is not only not afraid of the difficult Apple car, but also not afraid of industry hegemons like Tesla. In the fourth quarter of 2023, BYD's pure electric vehicle sales have surpassed Tesla to become the world's No. 1. In terms of intelligence, which Apple has high hopes for, the intelligent technology of China's new car counterparts is also "far ahead". Xpeng and Huawei have both achieved mapless intelligent driving, and other players' intelligent driving has also achieved L2+. Apple, on the other hand, optimistically estimates that it will not be possible to launch an L2+ product until four years later.
In the past, we thought that Chinese car companies could cross the river by touching the "apple" and catch up and surpass on the road of electric intelligence. However, by accident, Apple has fallen behind, and China's new car-making forces have become the world's leaders in electric smart cars. Now, I'm afraid it's Apple's turn to touch "us" across the river.
If ten years ago, Apple's car still had a "blessing or curse" influence on Chinese cars, then ten years later, Apple's car is no longer relevant to Chinese cars.
There is not much time left for Apple
In 2020, when Rebus announced that he would gamble on his entire reputation to build a car, many people said that he entered the game too late. Now, 1003 days have passed, and Xiaomi cars have arrived as promised. His idol Apple made a car, but it was still difficult to give birth. Rebus was thinking about beating apples, but he didn't expect to get his wish in building a car.
No one would have imagined that after ten years of waiting, the teenager who had been full of enthusiasm and anticipation was approaching middle age, only to be told that he still had to wait for the next uncertain four years. Moreover, even if the Apple car is delivered smoothly in 2028, its L2+ intelligent driving level will already lag behind its Chinese counterparts by four or five years. Apple, which was once far ahead in the field of smartphones, may have to taste the taste of "being born behind".
"Tomorrow after tomorrow, tomorrow is so much. ""Returning to China next week" is a curse that Jia Yueting can't solve, will "building a car next time" become an insurmountable curse for Apple?
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