
Apple Signs Deal with Volkswagen for Driverless Car - rtrunck
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/23/technology/apple-bmw-mercedes-volkswagen-driverless-cars.html
======
telltruth
Favorite tidbits:

\- This is only for experimental self-driving vans shuttling employees. It
will have drivers to take control on demand.

\- Initially Apple planned self-driving vehicle where 4 seats face each other,
sunroof material that gives less hit, electrically tinted windows and
holographic windshields.

\- Project was abandoned because they realized "designing and building
fundamental parts of a new car was not simple".

\- Apple tried to partner with someone who can do manufacturing while they do
design. BMW, Mercedes, Nissan - all rejected that offer.

\- Ive was charged with design. Tim Cook drives BMW so he wanted to partner
with them.

\- VW accepted the offer because they have been beaten a lot. They will supply
basic components while Apple will add others.

It surprises to me no end that a company with $100B in funds, vast experience
in supply chain and ability to suck up virtually all talent is struggling so
badly at a technology that is over 100 years old while Tesla with its
shoestring budgets leap frogged all established players. Goes on to show that
leader at the top makes all the difference in the world.

Kudos to NYT for doing investigative journalism.

~~~
solatic
> It surprises to me no end that a company with $100B in funds, vast
> experience in supply chain and ability to suck up virtually all talent is
> struggling so badly at a technology that is over 100 years old

Their supply chain experience is for completely different parts. The suppliers
for computer and phone parts are not the same suppliers as those for engine
parts, wheel parts, etc.

Apple wouldn't just need to hire the right people - they'd need to build out
the factories and supplier relationships and dealer networks and everything
else from scratch. Recall that Tesla was founded in 2003, and what you look at
now is the product of fifteen years of corporate development - and they're
still not on the level of Detroit's Big Three.

Really, Apple would need to acquire a car manufacturer, but when you look at
the market caps of various car companies - GM's is $53B, Ford's is $44B,
Chrysler's is $34B, BMW's is $56B, and so on - buying a controlling stake in
any one of them is doable, but constitutes using quite a lot of Apple's cash
reserves. It goes to reason that there'll be opposition within Apple to using
that much of the cash reserves on any one bet.

~~~
nazka
I remember seeing an article where Aston Martin would be a perfect deal. They
are doing great cars, you can see they care about quality and design beyond
just the luxury segment, and they are cheap. It's valued at $7 billions [1].

I don't like the idea of Tim Cook going to BMW just because he drives and
likes BMW however... I think it's a bad way to make decisions.

[1] [https://www.motor1.com/news/238922/aston-martin-stock-
market...](https://www.motor1.com/news/238922/aston-martin-stock-market-
listing/)

~~~
devy
> I don't like the idea of Tim Cook going to BMW just because he drives and
> likes BMW however... I think it's a bad way to make decisions.

No, I think that's OP and you reading too much in that tidbit. The original
quote was this:

    
    
       BMW was long Apple’s top choice, given its focus on 
       high-end but mainstream products, former employees said. 
       Many Apple executives, including the company’s chief executive,
       Timothy D. Cook, also drive BMWs. 
    

So BMW was a top choice not because many execs are driving them but because
it's a luxury premium auto brand and sells quite well - which is very similar
to Apple brand consumer electronics.

Also, Jony Ive is a car guy, he loves Aston Martins, Bentleys, Saabs and Land
Rovers and have a huge collections of them. By your logic, it'd be a "bad
choice" to consider Aston Martin simply because Jony Ive loves them :)

------
yborg
EPA emissions tech: Please report the current engine NOx level. Passat: Ok, I
found this on the web for "Engine knocks level"... EPA emissions tech: Please
report engine PM 2.5 particulate level. Passat: Here's what I found on the web
for 'Engine p.m. 2.5 particulate level"...

It's a match made in heaven.

~~~
camillomiller
I would never defend VW for the emissions scandal (although they were just the
ones who were caught, far from the sole offender), but they certainly deserve
praise for their ability to market good affordable vehicles to the masses. My
bad feeling about this is coming from another perspective: this reminds me
pretty closely of the Motorola-Apple Rockr fiasco. Cars are very different
from phones, though. I’m surprised that Apple couldn’t sign a deal with the
Japanese or the Koreans though.

~~~
TheForumTroll
>although they were just the ones who were caught, far from the sole offender

Who else made software that runs the engine in cheat-mode when under emission
test, which is what VW was caught doing?

~~~
camillomiller
What about FCA?

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/business/fiat-chrysler-
di...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/business/fiat-chrysler-diesel-
emissions-lawsuit.html)

------
dvcrn
I wish Apple the best, but the truth is that AI powered software made by Apple
just isn't good. But I still prefer Apples stance to data privacy a lot more
than what Google does, even if it means it's a bit behind.

But at this point, I think the only ways to catch up is to gobble up a few AI
powered startups with their cash.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
I don't know, that feels a bit like saying a decade ago that Google built a
search engine, what in the world do they know about building a mobile
operating system?

If this fails, I don't think 'Apple has little experience with building AI-
driven software' will be a prominent reason. It would in a simulated world
where Apple was not allowed hire any expertise, acquire any companies or
technology and spend none of its cash, but could only divert the engineers who
worked on Siri to this project. Sure. But that just isn't the case.

~~~
hammock
_> what in the world do they know about building a mobile operating system?_

They don't. Android was an acquisition and so was Waymo.

~~~
blattimwind
Android is not a good operating system, either. They still haven't figured out
updates FFS.

~~~
konraditurbe
Well, android is open source so manufacturers can add their stuff and
manufacturers decide when to update their devices (if at all). Google is being
more strict on updates, as well as adding Project Treble which makes updating
a device a breeze.

------
bigiain
I wonder how much this was about Apple being "spurned by BMW and Mercedes",
and how much it was about "no other car manufacturer was as desperate for
sales and PR as post-dieselgate Volkswagen - or were prepared to sign up to
Apple's offer of outrageously onerous terms and privacy/IP ownership clauses"?

~~~
fergie
Maybe VW was just the best match.

VW have significant experience of producing cars for other manufacturers, and
put a lot of effort into developing reusable "platforms". They are super
popular in Europe- hitting the exact sweet spot between practicality and
desirability (Top Gear described the Golf as "the car that everybody buys with
their own money"). The forthcoming ID range is perhaps the strongest lineup of
EVs in any manufacturer's pipeline. They need more traction in the US, and it
therefore makes sense to partner with the arguably coolest US corporation.

~~~
Tade0
Golf driver spotted.

But jokes aside I wouldn't be so sure about this. DHL has famously chosen
StreetScooter instead of VW to built their last-mile fleet and the top brass
in VW were also famously upset about this.

Also sales of the first gen Golf EV weren't even of the same order as sales of
e.g. the LEAF - perhaps because VW insisted on keeping diesels alive longer
than it made any sense.

~~~
carlmr
>perhaps because VW insisted on keeping diesels alive longer than it made any
sense.

They're still making way more money than the leaf on Diesels. Giving up on
your cash cows is the most misguided business advice I've ever seen.

You should use the money from your cash cows to innovate. And wishing for more
innovation on the EV side would be nice for advertisement mostly. EVs just
aren't mass market yet.

It's good to have the EV knowledge ready when you need it. So far I would
agree with you. But how many EVs you sell has little to do with how much you
know about the technology.

~~~
Tade0
> They're still making way more money than the leaf on Diesels. Giving up on
> your cash cows is the most misguided business advice I've ever seen.

Was that cash cow worth a global scandal, billions lost in unsaleable
inventory(hundred thousands) and fines($25bln) though? I mean - they lost
roughly two years of net income here and had several executives land in
prison.

Nissan on the other hand invested roughly 20% of that($4bln) to develop the
LEAF.

Perhaps giving up on diesels before it was too late constituted sound advice
after all?

~~~
carlmr
You're forgetting that Diesels are still making up a huge amount of VW group
profit. Of course the scandal wasn't worth it, but it also wasn't necessary.
Rather the decision to save on AdBlue was not worth it, not the Diesel
technology itself.

I mean it's kind of like asking GM if it was worth it to not update their
ignitions after they found out they were faulty and killed a few people (and
got off easy because US company ;)). It's not a problem with ignition switch
technology itself, but just this case of bad management decisions.

You can invest 4bn in EV technology, that would be smart, but those 4bn have
to be made somewhere. In this case you can make this with Diesels and reinvest
in EV. This is not some SV startup that will just waste its investors cash
reserves until it goes broke.

------
qaq
"Apple once had grand aspirations to build its own electric self-driving car
and lead the next generation of transportation. Over time, the tech giant’s
ambitions ran into reality." Reality is Apple can buy VW AG for cash twice.

~~~
johannes1234321
Reality as well is that independently from the amount of shares they buy, can
only have 20% of the votes and the German state of Lower Saxony
(Niedersachsen) will always have 20.2% by law.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Act](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Act)

Also: Independent from current market value and imagining the law wouldn't
exist they'd still have to pay quite a surplus on the market value and then
have major trouble in handling a company of that size.

(Edit: oh I missed that the law has been changed since the Porsche takeover
story ...)

~~~
qaq
Ok once :)

------
panic
I wish Apple would stop chasing trends like self-driving cars and augmented
reality. They used to have a strong vision for the future -- now it just looks
like they're out of ideas.

~~~
weaksauce
I get your sentiment but i would also like to say that people scoffed at jobs
holding what looked like an oversized iphone on the stage and that's been a
boom for them fwict. the iphone was a product that people dismissed out of
hand. the ipod was a product that people dismissed out of hand and it saved
apple. hell the apple ii was pretty revolutionary back in the day.

~~~
panic
Yeah, that's kind of what I'm saying -- instead of focusing on more "serious"
things that "everyone knows are the future", I wish Apple had the courage to
focus on the kind of products that people tend to dismiss as boring or
derivative at first.

~~~
pavs
I think that it had less to do with apple and more to do with steve jobs. I
can't think of any product from Apple after Steve Jobs died, that had any mass
market effect. Either with new product or evolution of the existing product.
They are still riding the Steve Jobs high.

~~~
carlmr
The company has a long history and for much of that history Steve Jobs didn't
hit the note either. They're still riding the brand definitely.

I think what Steve Jobs said about focus is important though. The company
needs to focus on it's core strengths and innovate in these markets.
[http://www.casestudyinc.com/apples-four-quadrant-product-
gri...](http://www.casestudyinc.com/apples-four-quadrant-product-grid)

------
jumelles
I'm continually shocked at how easy tech companies think it will be to build a
car.

~~~
hobofan
On the flipside, I think it's funny how easy some of the big car companies
thought it would be to build a self-driving car. The general attitude I've
seen from German car manufacturers the last years was one of "we just need to
pour a bunch of software engineers on the problem". Maybe this deal is a start
of a mentality-shift there.

~~~
blattimwind
Perhaps publicly, but people tell me that management is acutely aware how hard
the problem is; this stems in part from the experience developing the various
assistance systems, which was neither cheap nor easy.

~~~
hobofan
Maybe some parts of management, but my impression is that it's also mostly
communicated like that internally. I based my comment on conversations I had
with people working at the car companies (Audi, BMW, VW and Mercedes), and all
expressed that view in slight variations.

------
mikelward
It seems like there's been a lot more of their Lexus cars on the road in my
part of Sunnyvale the past few weeks. They look like this:
[https://goo.gl/images/Kt9t3M](https://goo.gl/images/Kt9t3M)

------
Isamu
>In late 2015, Apple bought two Lexus S.U.V.s and hired a Virginia firm called
Torc Robotics to retrofit the vehicles

More about Torc Robotics, founded by Virginia Tech autonomous vehicle
competition team:

[https://torc.ai/our-story/](https://torc.ai/our-story/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torc_Robotics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torc_Robotics)

------
Crash0v3rid3
Unless I misread this deal seems to only cover shuttling for their employees.
I think Apple has realized how far behind they are in this area and I'm not
sure what they can do at this point to keep up with Waymo and others.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Do they need a self driving car? Facebook isn't building one. Amazon isn't
building one.

I can see why a self driving car appeals to Apple since Apple's expertise is
integrating software and hardware in a high quality way but I don't see this
as something the need to do to not be left behind.

~~~
eaurouge
Neither of those companies has the cash reserves Apple has at its disposal.
Nor the expertise in hardware software integration. There’s lots of things
Apple can do with their cash, gaining a foothold in a data rich industry of
the future is one of the more obvious ones.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
An even more obvious one would be bringing their hardware up to the same spec
as their competitors and fixing macOS...

------
Animats
_The project has suffered from repeated changes in direction that have hurt
morale and led to hundreds of departures from its peak of more than 1,000
members two years ago, five former Apple employees said._ ...

 _Instead, Apple has signed a deal with Volkswagen to turn some of the
carmaker’s new T6 Transporter vans into Apple’s self-driving shuttles for
employees — a project that is behind schedule and consuming nearly all of the
Apple car team’s attention, said three people familiar with the project._

This is more like "we give up, but will do a symbolic project so we don't look
too stupid."

This is harder to do than the web/mobile crowd thought. This is hard real time
high-reliability, like avionics. Google/Waymo gets this. Most of the others
don't. So far, Tesla, Uber, Volvo, and Apple have failed. Not sure about
Cruise yet, but I saw one of their vehicles get stuck behind a double-parked
car in SF and the human had to take over.

~~~
brisance
Your Google bias is showing. How have the other companies "failed"? Apple
hasn't even started and it has "failed"?

~~~
Animats
"Hasn't even started"? They had a thousand people working on self-driving cars
at one point.

~~~
brisance
Can a product be considered a failure if it was never made available for sale
to the public? This is exactly why Apple is secretive about its projects.
Sure, there have been true failures like the iPod Hi-Fi, the eMate, the 20th
Anniversary Mac etc. But to consider the car project to be a failure is
presumptuous and premature.

~~~
sangnoir
>Can a product be considered a failure if it was never made available for sale
to the public?

Yes.

~~~
brisance
So Grab, Didi Chuxing, Go-Jek etc do not have self-driving cars projects. Have
they failed? Are they failing?

~~~
manigandham
If they never started those products, then those products have not failed
since they never existed.

There's a difference between a product and a company by the way.

~~~
brisance
We do not know if they have these projects because there is no definitive
information about them. Even the people who do know may choose to sandbag and
outright lie about it. And that's my point; it's ridiculous to judge whether
something is a failure when the market has not had a chance to decide if it
was a failure or not. At the end of the day, that's the only thing that
matters.

------
bane
Anecdata: It used to be an almost perfect predictor in my social circles that
people who owned a VW also owned lots of Apple gear. Two different people I
knew where both VW enthusiasts AND Apple iPod collectors (these two things
used to also be strong predictors of several other consumer habits
coincidentally).

It's a good match in terms of synergy, but I don't see it doing much to grow
the customer base of either company even if it might grow the revenue per
customer. A term I've used for it in the past is "choir mining" where you keep
squeezing your existing customers.

------
kovrik
Can they please make Maps and Siri usable first?

~~~
Bud
What's not "usable" about Maps? Other than the data being somewhat being
Google's data, which isn't a usability issue?

~~~
kovrik
They are OK.

Not sure about US, but here in New Zealand they don't work so well.

I try Apple Maps ~once in 6 months, They are definitely getting better and
better, but still no comparison to Google Maps.

------
whywhywhywhy
The world is in need of a good computer company that actually cares about
computers and wont get distracted by devices, TV shows and definitely not
cars.

~~~
m_mueller
yes, including computer software (if it's only hardware then Lenovo and a few
others seem to be fine). but with all the PC pioneers gone it seems difficult
to achieve. I wish Alan Kay had more entrepreneurial spirit, I think his group
has (always had) all the right ideas on how to actually harness the power of
PCs.

------
tobilg
I really wonder why they chose a T6 as the platform, if MOIA as a 100%
daughter of Volkswagen already has developed a vehicle very close to what is
described as goal for the T6:
[https://www.moia.io/vehicle/](https://www.moia.io/vehicle/)

~~~
z3t4
If the car will be self driving, I wonder if it would be less scary if you sit
backwards.

~~~
tobilg
The vehicle has only forward-facing seats...

~~~
brandonsometig
If they're using the T6 platform they will kit it out however they like.

------
aditya
I wonder if this is the Motorola ROKR all over again

~~~
erikpukinskis
If that’s true we should see an Apple Car ~2 years after the Volksapfel is
released!

------
SN76477
Autonomous vehicles are a safety issue and should be open source, not a race
to innovate.

~~~
majestik
I’m not sure how this logic holds up. Airplanes are a safety issue, should
their software be open sourced?

~~~
SN76477
Yes

It should be open for peer review to make sure that it is the best possible
system for everyone.

------
hughc
Dogfooding your driverless car software by driving your fellow employees
around in a van powered by it?

There could be some awkward moments in the cafeteria chatting with your
workmate, who's in a neckbrace after a software glitch.

~~~
jonshariat
_Co-worker shows up in a neck brace_

"Hey"

oh hey.

...

" YOU FORGOT THE BLODDY SEMI-COLON BRAD!!!"

------
pentae
I guess all bets are off on them fixing their lineup of computer hardware
then.

------
siteshwar
I suspect they will end up in the same situation as they did with Motorola
more than a decade ago, until someone reminds them that the people who are
serious about software should make their own hardware.

~~~
mandeepj
It will teach them a lot of lessons just like that phone stint with Motorola.
There is also a rumor that partnership was just to learn phone building for
Apple

------
chrisjc
Somewhat surprising since it seems that Audi (owned by VWAG) is so entrenched
in the Google (Android Auto and Android Automotive) ecosystem. Although not
entirely indicating that the Android presence will have anything to do with
driverless, it would only make sense that this would be how Google gets their
foot in the door with all of these auto manufactures. I guess it makes sense
for car manufacturers to spread out the risk instead of completely committing
to one ecosystem over another.

~~~
madeofpalk
Isn't it more appropriate to look at Google's actual self-driving initiative
partiers, rather than who's using their dashboards?

------
bluthru
I think Jony really wanted to design a car but Apple came to terms with the
fact that they just aren't that company.

------
mikejb
The entire move is a stepping stone in learning the technology, which makes
sense to me. The question on my mind is if this gives them access to VW AG,
which would include Audi, Porsche, and what I place my bet/hope on: Bentley.
Because I doubt that shipping employees around campus in vans is their long-
term goal here.

------
karthikvellanki
Anyone know why Apple hasn't acquired one of the existing self driving car
startups.

If a company known to be old and slow like GM could overpay and snap up
Cruise, what's stopping Apple from opening their warchest to acquire one of
the many other self driving car startups that have made decent progress?

------
HugoDaniel
This made me want to watch the series "Dirty Money" again...

shame on you Apple, you don't need this.

------
JohnStudio
After visiting the bay area ... it makes me wonder if Tesla done f'd up by not
working with them on an OS for their cars. It seems like such a natural fit
for the two.

~~~
empath75
I think Apple wants to sell more than a few thousand cars.

------
mrep
Considering how hard it has been for Tesla in the automotive industry, I'm not
surprised in the slightest with this failure despite Apples 1000+ employee
investment.

------
stuaxo
*Needs an actual driver outside of test conditions.

------
jacksmith21006
How about first improve Apple maps or at least let us use Google maps with Car
Play?

[https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps-
moat/](https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps-moat/) Google Maps's Moat -
Justin O'Beirne

Only then fix Siri and then try your hand at an automated car. Maps and Siri
will not kill someone. But honestly if Apple can not figure out maps or Siri
how on Earth would they do a car?

~~~
dwaite
In what way have they not "figured out" maps? It isn't a defective product,
Google just has more user features (partly because they monetize location
data, partly because they monetize priority display of businesses, and partly
because they were around 8 years longer)

~~~
jacksmith21006
Apple is a big company and forces you to use Apple Maps with Carplay. There is
just no excuse for Apple Maps to continue to be so far behind. Been an Apple
fan before it was cool to be an Apple fan but I can be realistic.

Here is a great link that breaks it down compared to Google Maps. When did
Apple decide the goal no longer is to be the best?

Do not even get me started on Siri. I find this defense of Apple baffling? Why
is it acceptable to do a poor job at a product?

[https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps-
moat/](https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps-moat/)

~~~
wafflebear
The problem is that there is essentially no limit to how detailed a map can
be. As long as Google continues to add detail to their maps as fast as Apple
does, Apple will not be able to catch up.

Most other products have a plateau where adding more features ceases to make
the product better.

Apple Maps definitely has improved a lot since when it was introduced in 2012.

~~~
p49k
That’s fine and understandable, but Apple should not be forcing their maps
product down the throats of iOS users by crippling competitors’ products for
no good reason (same goes for Apple crippling Spotify to promote Apple Music,
etc.)

~~~
cpuguy83
That's a bold statement. I use Google maps on my iPhone. What's the problem?

I'd say Apple Maps did its job well... It got Google to release Google Maps
FOR iOS.

~~~
p49k
What Apple is doing now is similar to what Microsoft did in the 90s regarding
Internet Explorer. Yes, you can use other apps, but much of the common ways to
integrate into the OS are purposely disabled for non-Apple apps for obvious
anti-competitive purposes; for Google maps, you can't set it as your default
maps app (which means Apple Maps is constantly opening in contexts where you
obviously want Google Maps), there is no CarPlay integration, can't use it
properly with Siri, etc.

I guess they can get away with it because iOS isn't a monopoly, but I think
it's a dumb move on their part.

~~~
cpuguy83
Fair point.

------
goldenkey
I sincerely hope the software isn't designed with the same buggyness as the
latest OSX renditions..

------
ninedays
People are so quick at forgetting that there would be no 3D in Google Maps if
Apple didn't release it with iOS 6. When using transit, Apple maps tells me
the exact exit # to go to my destination. In a city with transit, I found
Apple map to be far superior than Google which is remarkable.

Edit : my point is that it is a bit childish to state that one is better than
the other. We need both in order to all have a better map experience. Som in
some cases, it is better to use one and in some cases better to use the other.

