The Failure of Apple’s Car Project
Wrapped in secrets from the start, and which continued for a decade before the Apple automotive project was revealed, recovers, but finally reached its disappearance: 10 billion dollars spent and nothing to show other than a sour taste for industry and shareholders, and a cemetery of ideas that ultimately never saw the execution. But was Apple’s failure was the upheaval that industry needed, and what’s wrong with exactly?
Spoiler Alert: Even the technology giants finally realize that autonomous driving has proven too ambitious and that the complex world of AI, associated with the actual consequences of the automotive world, would take much more time to do well. But is there a silver lining for technological companies daring to venture on the same path, and what does Apple show?
Late at the party, but it may not have been a bad thing
There are two sides at this point: the first is that the market already has too many players, and many of them are for a long time. What part of a takeover could have expected to enter the market so late, especially with something of this complex? Should have opted for a simpler product? The other is the synthetic demand that was latent and awaiting significant disturbance of the market to emerge. It has always been Apple’s mission goal, but it may have been the wrong approach. Take advantage of an existing fans base, which could be akin to the discipulate, was almost a fact, a bit like Tesla. There is no doubt that this type of synthetic demand could have been easily exploited.
The calendar was enveloped in secrets from around 2001 to 2014, during which very little was known on the project, apart from the news of the registered patents, the key people employed and the licenses obtained, as well as the prototype vehicles on the road. SOIn 2015, the lid was lifted and “Project Titan“was revealed (a little), to the great fascination of actors in the technological industry and passionate observers. Writing on the wall then? Was it too much to realize too late?
Autonomous driving is always a dangerous company
According to a report compiled by Craft Law Firm, which analyzed NHTSA data, there were 3,979 accidents involving autonomous cars. And yes, a rise in recent times has naturally due to more autonomous vehicles on the road. Vehicle manufacturers are forced to submit accident data from 2019 and, therefore, the actual number of underlying data could be underestimated. Comforting, I know.
On an even darker note, this report also recognizes 83 deaths caused by autonomous car accidents. Grim indeed, but it is something to keep in mind with Apple, which has ventured into this space much earlier, all these years ago, so you can appreciate how difficult this space was. The company in the world of combinations and disputes of collective automobile appeals is a precarious area for any operator and automotive manufacturer. Social responsibility alone would attract a lot of negative comments and hindsight. The simple presence of this risk alone testifies to the bravery of the apple, even by trying to take off this, and even less to keep it as long as they did.
No smoke without fire and internal “problems”
Yes, the secular saying holds each time. The project had many strong players, but a clear direction seemed to be missing. However, this is at least what the rumor mill has produced. Despite the poached key players of Tesla, Ford, BMW and Porsche, the mixture between industry experts and Apple managers facilitates the understanding that this type of field experts in the field has perhaps been a revenue of muspe.
As in so many large -scale technological projects, without line of view and direction Claire, all routes will take you there. What “there“is a failed project, a flucoming glasses and blown budgets. I have already seen and lived.
I am not saying that Apple or whoever was at fault here, given the enormous uncertainty of autonomous conduct at the time. The jury came out. Anyway, I understand why it may have caused internal problems, especially when you examine the staff rotation on the project. But hey, no one said it would be easy.
A little too confidence
Any brand seeking to enter the automotive industry must do so at a significant cost. No one arrives in a polite product, even which is tried and tested and which already exists on a market, not to mention something as difficult as autonomous driving. Even for the pillars, Apple voluntarily denies the process of paying school costs that other manufacturers have paid? Was Apple just a little too confident? We have already seen it when the brands decide to change lanes without the necessary reasonable diligence. Gopro comes to mind, but ultimately, nothing ventured, nothing has won and the world in which we live was made by a great thought and incredibly wild ideas.
Sometimes these ideas are a little too wild.
We know that Apple as a brand has always pushed the limits in terms of technology, and we love them for that, but it was perhaps not the type of game that they should have approached more conservatively. It was perhaps better to slow down enthusiasm. The confidence that you could produce electronic devices and personal computers, and that you have absolute game changers in the process, does not apply to the automotive industry, which is a very different playground. As Apple managed to achieve it. Confidence, we have learned, is good, but sometimes it manages a thin and blurred line between confidence and arrogance. And I like the brand.
You must crawl before you can walk – the ambition of autonomous driving
The murmurs centered on the apple being a little too ambitious at a time when autonomous driving is a company difficult to perfect, even today. Ten years ago, it was exponentially more difficult. Consider the period between 2000 and 2015, when Apple tried to be, and you can appreciate how difficult it should be. Not impossible, but seriously difficult. So much so that many brands have put it on the rear burner and opted for lower autonomy levels. You have to crawl before you can walk.
Like Tesla, which introduced the automatic driver in 2014, other brands adopted the adaptive cruise control with the track correction, as well as low level autonomous characteristics. It was the innovative approach that Apple did not adopt. “”Too chew” And “too early“Taken in mind, and even if we are talking about technological jumps and market disturbances, it was perhaps too much to develop and repercussions at the time.
Does this mean that fully autonomous driving is always a eccentric concept? Not barely, since the lower levels reached for years have been questioned in the same way as we ask for fully autonomous conduct, but objectives have been achieved in industry. One thing that can be said is that similar questions were probably asked at the time of Henry Ford, when the horse was replaced by the car as the main path method. Was the backlash at the time more extreme?
Apple’s failure on the project serves as a lesson striking the technology industry, suggesting that you cannot buy your path to success, even with brilliant minds and in project management, even with a serious number of bright brains; Sometimes too many cooks spoil the broth. No apple game game planned there.
This, as well as advanced deadlines, a high turnover of the staff and a very clear directive, revealed a story which was completely the opposite of what we know that Apple, which undoubtedly contributed to a change of orientation towards initiatives generating AI instead of building a real car.
The timing may have been extinguished, but we cannot blame the ambition. All the evidence suggests that autonomous driving was too complicated at the time to point it where things could work. Given more time and progress in AI technologies, things could have worked; Companies like Magna may have been able to do things well. In the end, even world -class technology companies must respond to their shareholders. When you do not provide value, it is often cheaper to remove the plug and focus on something else, which Apple has done. However, there are many cases of “would not be / could not but no”.
