
Apple Taps Bob Mansfield to Oversee Car Project - okket
http://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-taps-bob-mansfield-to-oversee-car-project-1469458580
======
kalleboo
My pet theory is still that the Apple Car project is all just to keep Jony Ive
around - he's bored of designing square rectangles, and every day when he gets
in his Tesla he swears at the crappy plastic interior. He went to Tim Cook and
said "I'm leaving for Tesla to fix their design", and Tim Cook knowing that
Jony Ive is probably half of Apple's share value will do anything to keep him
on.

~~~
btian
Jony Ive gets around in his chauffeured Bentley Mulsanne.

~~~
danpalmer
Now that does not have a crappy plastic interior.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
It has some of the finest plastic money can buy.

------
nardi
What I feel like everyone is missing is that an Apple Car makes sense for the
same reason the iPhone made sense in 2007:

The existing technology really blows, and Apple can make a significant
contribution.

Remember what "smartphones" looked like before the iPhone? No touch screens,
physical keyboards, tiny screens, almost no native web browsing.

Now imagine what Apple could do to the inside of your car with that kind of
thinking in mind, and $80,000.

Edit: I forgot one of the biggest problems with the old smartphones is they
were ugly as sin, which is also true of modern cars.

~~~
wavefunction
>The existing technology really blows, and Apple can make a significant
contribution.

This is absolutely ridiculous. Apple is starting out at 0 with no real
competence in this area, the least of which is interaction with regulatory
bodies tasked with consumer protection.

~~~
jameshart
All of which is also true when Apple set out to make a phone. They had no
competence in RF engineering, or interaction with the diversity of cellphone
network providers throughout the world, the conventional wisdom at the time
was that an outsider couldn't just break in to the phone market without
acquiring an existing manufacturer.

~~~
billiam
Sorry, I call BS on this. I know a good bit about the semi-secret history
here. I worked at Motorola before and during the launch of the first iPhone
and also knew some of the people on the original iPhone product team. While it
is true that they started with very few mobile industry veterans, they hired a
few key people; they either quickly learned how to maneuver inside Apple or
disappeared without a trace.

So it is not accurate to say Apple just learned how to make smartphones really
fast, more that they effectively hacked the whole process with a number of
Jedi mind tricks as well as key product decisions, all cemented by classic
Steve Jobs dickery.

1\. They cultivated us at Motorola shamelessly by pretending to make an
"iTunes phone" (remember the Rockr?) while they were just pumping our teams
for information on how the byzantine portfolio and terminal acceptance process
at carriers worked. They never intended that phone to ship and used the whole
sordid con to get into Ralph de le Vega's office (sorry, Ed Zander).

They then used all the persuasion and BS they had to convince AT&T to give
Apple a pass on the incredibly complex field network testing all phones must
pass. The reason the overall phone experience of the first iPhone was so bad
was not just because Jobs and co wanted it to be a great music and Internet
experience first, but because they couldn't make a great phone at all then.

I don't see the exact analogy with teh car industry. cars. The mobile phone
business was laughably over-regulated and unlike the extremely competitive
phone industry, wireless carriers were not really. And oh yeah, smartphones
were terrible, and cars today, whether you like the way they look or not, are
some of the most incredibly optimized products ever made by man: safe,
reliable, efficient.

Cars just can't be disrupted via a Jesus phone coming in at the high end with
innovative features. The Jesus car already exists (Tesla) and it has been
extremely successful at influencing one of the biggest industries in the world
in numerous ways. But if your goal, like Apple, is to not just influence but
manufacture at scale, then Tesla has failed and it appears it will take any
company, even Apple, decades to learn how to really make cars for more than a
few.

I sure hope this isn't just abut cars as a service, because Apple has
demonstrated it just can't do services, even when latched to a truly beautiful
shiny object it has made.

~~~
smcnally
> because Apple has demonstrated it just can't do services

"In Fiscal 2015, the Services bin, “revenue from the iTunes Store ® , App
Store, Mac App Store, iBooks StoreTM and Apple MusicTM (collectively “Internet
Services”), AppleCare, Apple Pay ® , licensing and other services” counted for
$19.9B, 8.5% of the company total."

[http://archive.mondaynote.com/2016/01/25/watching-apples-
fir...](http://archive.mondaynote.com/2016/01/25/watching-apples-first-
fiscal-2016-quarter/)

~~~
FireBeyond
People in this thread are talking about the "bullshit" of existing cars and
how the AppleCar will be a "come to Jesus" moment.

Pointing to revenue as proof of success is a bad metric here. Great, the App
and Mac App Store make lots of money, not the least because one of them is the
only way for anyone to make revenue from iOS.

No-one could point to MAS, for example, and pretend with a straight face that
it's a "service done right" for anyone except Apple's bottom line.

~~~
tjl
I can point to one service Apple has done right, Messages.

~~~
sangnoir
> I can point to one service Apple has done right, Messages

Is it the same message that for many years disappeared all message sent to you
when you switched from Apple? Perhaps as a final "fuck you" for leaving our
ecosystem or them not just caring

------
antonius
Mansfield has a successful track record with respect to Apple products.

With that said, this is his most difficult challenge to date and I'm not sure
how successful he and the company as a whole will be given the difficulties of
bringing an autonomous car to market.

~~~
arjunrc
I believe the goal here is an electric car with autonomous features, branded
similar to the S-Class or the new E-Class (instead of going all the way like
Tesla's AutoPilot).

~~~
pgodzin
What's the point of that? Why would Apple want to make such a huge bet on an
industry they have never been in just to create an incremental improvement on
cars already billed as luxury items?

If they proceed with the Apple Car, I would imagine it would be a disrupting
concept that Apple would be uniquely prepared to handle.

~~~
jms18
Ballmer in a 2007 interview with USA Today:

"There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market
share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money.
But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd
prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have
2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get."

Palm CEO Ed Colligan in 2006:

"We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a
decent phone," he said. "[Apple is] not going to just figure this out. They’re
not going to just walk in."

~~~
mikeash
They laughed at Einstein, but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

A smartphone was solidly within Apple's expertise in 2007. It's a small
consumer electronics device (iPod, Mac) with a graphical UI (Mac OS X). Apple
had tons of experience building (or more accurately, outsourcing the building
of) small electronics. What was tricky about the iPhone was the RF stuff,
getting the carriers to cooperate, and cutting data usage to squeeze into the
crappy data plans available. Except RF stuff is nearly off-the-shelf, and
Apple cut the Gordian Knot for the other two items by partnering with an
underdog carrier in exchange for unlimited data plans.

A car is far outside Apple's expertise. Are they going to outsource it to
Foxconn like they do with the iPhone, and ship them across the Pacific?
Doesn't seem feasible. Will they buy or build their own factory? Doable, but
totally new for them. What about sales, service, and support? The iPhone was
able to use Apple's extensive network of existing retail stores for that, but
cars need garages and mechanics.

Obviously, it can be done. Tesla pulled it off with far less. But there's
plenty of room for Apple to crash and burn, too. (Figuratively, one hopes.)

~~~
ams6110
Jobs built a factory. The NeXT computer was made there and the factory was
reportedly state-of-the-art.

Of course Jobs is gone but I would guess there are others still at Apple that
were involved so that it might not be totally new to them.

~~~
protomyth
I was under the impression due to cost and poor sales, they actually had
alternate arrangements to build the NeXT products after a while. It was a nice
video and launch story though.

~~~
ams6110
You're right they did get out of the hardware business totally in the later
years. But still, they build an an incredible factory that was widely praised.

~~~
protomyth
I'm not talking about getting out of the hardware business.

"The factory that Jobs had configured to produce 10,000 computers every month
produced hundreds every month. Because of the low volume, human labor was
cheaper than maintaining the automated equipment."

[http://lowendmac.com/2013/next-years-steve-jobs-before-
trium...](http://lowendmac.com/2013/next-years-steve-jobs-before-triumphant-
return-apple/)

~~~
ams6110
My point was that he built a great factory. That is not diminished by his
inability to sell the product.

But, he is gone and as others note it was a long time ago. It's probably not
very relevant, in retrospect.

------
Tiktaalik
In the long term do people see the automobile industry as a growth industry?
Will there be more cars on the road per capita in the future or less?

Some trends make me think there will be less cars around in the future. The
average age at which people get drivers licenses is rising for example as it
is becoming easier to live without them. The car sharing network Car2Go, which
one could look at as an early example of how a vast autonomous car network
would work, has shown to take 11 cars off the road for each that it adds[1].
Lastly there is a renaissance in many cities right now with planners turning
away from car oriented infrastructure, and more strongly focusing on
pedestrians, cyclists and public transit. It seems to me that a lot of the car
oriented thinking of the 1950s that resulted in the cities we see today is
discredited amongst planners and they are trying to move us away from that.

I wonder where Apple believes the car market share is going. Even if
automobiles aren't a growth industry they may think it's worthwhile to them to
try to take a good share of the luxury market.

[1] [http://www.citylab.com/commute/2016/07/car2go-car-
ownership-...](http://www.citylab.com/commute/2016/07/car2go-car-ownership-
vmt-ghg/491825/)

~~~
ryanmarsh
Yes. Cars are a growth industry. Which is kind of crazy but look at it this
way. How much bigger will the global middle class be in 50 years? 100?

Oh, and don't forget Africa. Lots of growth opportunity there.

~~~
ddebernardy
Africa is a prime destination for second hand cars coming in from developed
countries. I'm skeptical there is much growth opportunity there for car
manufacturers.

For the middle class, I can't help but wonder if it'll make much sense for
them to actually own cars in 50-100 years if there are company-operated fleets
of cheap self-driving vehicles - or at least more than one car per household.
Time will tell.

~~~
AnAfrican
>Africa is a prime destination for second hand cars coming in from developed
countries. I'm skeptical there is much growth opportunity there for car
manufacturers.

That's mostly because New Cars were unafforable to All. At least in the places
I've visited there are more and more new cars.

\- because people are richer than a few years ago

\- because financing options that didn't exist now do

\- because laws banning imports of cars "older than x years" also help (even
if they have unintended consequences)

------
DigitalJack
Apple is going to seamlessly combine Uber, ZipCar, Tesla's Autopilot, and the
US Drone program.

Here is what they are going to build:

A fleet of vehicles piloted remotely like drones, using all the the "tesla
autopilot" safety features as augmentation to make the job of remote piloting
easier.

The vehicles will be summoned by the iphone.

The fleet will have all-electrics and hybrids, where hybrids are a fallback
depending on availability and trip range.

The "front" seats will face the "rear" seats.

Windows will be dynamically shaded from transparent to opaque.

The "doors" will slide to open, including part of the roof, allowing
passengers to embark/disembark while standing.

~~~
nerfhammer
You will steer using your phone's accelerometer. Tilt the phone left to turn
left, and vice versa.

~~~
carterehsmith
Tilt up to fly? That would be something.

How about tilt down. Not obvious. Maybe you could dive if you were in water?

~~~
nerfhammer
Don't drop your phone while trying to use it to steer.

Shattered glass

------
Animats
Apple could easily make a branded car. The entire dashboard is usually
manufactured separately and installed as a unit.[1] Apple could build those,
with screens and Jonathan Ive design. This would come with a matching interior
package and exterior logos. Like the "Ford F-150 King Ranch Edition".

The next step up would to have some car company, perhaps in China, build them
a chassis, powertrain, and body, to which Apple would add their dashboard and
interior, and possibly the sensors and actuators for self-driving. Here are 10
new electric cars from China.[2] Apple could help them open up the US market.

There's no reason for Apple to get into the sheet metal stamping business,
even though Tesla did.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxeFEvEQKTU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxeFEvEQKTU)
[2]
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/tychodefeijter/2016/05/18/10-new...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/tychodefeijter/2016/05/18/10-new-
electric-cars-from-china/#15fd56361e2f)

------
wehadfun
If the past is any indication Apple will most likely improve on what is
already out there Mp3 player, Cell phone, buying music over internet, GUI, ...
were all around before Apple made them big.

Tesla is probably their target this time.

~~~
vessenes
It's interesting to speculate about what a 'fast follower' model looks like
with cars. Cars have been around a long time. You propose that Tesla has sort
of v2.0'ed cars with their fast, attractive, semi-autonomous, electric thing.
That could be.

But a fast follower model doesn't admit for autonomous cars; nobody is doing
anything like that yet. And we are all sort of imagining like the self driving
Apple car "carved from a solid billet of aluminium" (cue Jony Ives), I think.

Apple seems to have the market lead in UI/UX, Product Design, Supply Chain and
some forms of Silicon. I guess that could all add up to a greenfield effort at
just a car, but better.

I think it's more likely that this is a turning point in Apple's strategy, and
that they see the need to make some big bets, like Google. In any event, I'm
super curious about what will come out in 2020, or whatever.

------
guimarin
I've thought a lot about this and don't think that full autonomy is necessary
for Apple's car to be successful. I don't even think they need to be anywhere
near as good as Tesla. In fact, they probably can't because Tesla Autopilot
gets better through the experience of the cars, and that kind of software data
expertise is not in Apple's wheelhouse.

Recently I've tested all the auto-sensing, autopilot, and what not features of
the latest generation of cars. I've gone on dozens of test drives and I think
that something around as good as Honda Sensing will be sufficient for the next
car cycle (5-7 years). If they can make iterative improvments that will be
even better, but I don't think we are as close to the kind of car Apple would
want to sell in the autonomy field. Well understood driving cities like NYC
and SF are just not a big enough splash for Apple.

Why Apple will be very successful: Recently they've started to revamp and
expand their retail Flagship stores all over the world have recently been
remodeled, all to be much larger. I think this footprint of stores, larger
than Teslas, will be huge in getting people to buy the cars, thereby
circumventing the dealership model. Tesla was the pioneer here, and Apple will
ride on their coattails. Apple has incredibly supply chain leverage and
capability. In the last 5 years, the cost of batteries has gone down
significantly. Yet all the hybrid cars utilizing batteries are still very
expensive. The brand new Volvo XC90 is $20k more expensive for a 9kWh pack.
With Apple's supply chain and margin control capabilities, they should be able
to comfortably source Li-Ion batteries in the $200-$300 range per kWh. Apple
also crushes every single other computer and phone manufacturer when it comes
to their onboarding experience. This and their experience in UI/UX will be
key. The knob-less experience in cars is total dogshit. No one does a good job
of realizing that the user experience should not be a monolithic touchscreen
for things that are NOT media related. Sure make all Media touchscreen
enabled/driven. But not the AC/Heat, and in my mind the volume for the AV
system at the lest. If apple can solve that, and make it easy to pair a phone
with the infotainment system, then with their competitive pricing and superior
experience they will destroy the competition. All the legacy manufacturers are
still stuck in the wrong paradigm. Only Tesla is positioned to compete with
Apple, it's a shame they didn't buy Tesla earlier and let Musk run both
companies. Tim is great don't get me wrong, but with Musk at the helm they
would have been totally unstoppable. Tim is a genius at what he does, but he's
not the kind of visionary CEO that can launch the car like an Elon or Steve
could.

~~~
threeseed
> and that kind of software data expertise is not in Apple's wheelhouse

I suspect Apple knows just a little about data science given all of the data
they collect: [https://www.quora.com/Whats-a-typical-day-like-for-a-data-
sc...](https://www.quora.com/Whats-a-typical-day-like-for-a-data-scientist-at-
Apple)

Also they just took a major stake in Didi Chuxing which I assume meant they
had access to a raft of GPS points to use for training machine/deep learning
models.

~~~
chillacy
The responder doesn't even work at apple (from his other post: "I'm not an
engineer at apple" [https://www.quora.com/What-does-a-day-in-the-life-of-an-
Appl...](https://www.quora.com/What-does-a-day-in-the-life-of-an-Apple-
hardware-engineer-look-like) ). His response was also vague enough to apply to
most tech companies.

I thought it was suspect, since apple employees tend to be very quiet on
social media and in conferences.

------
_ph_
The car industry is ready for some disruption. Current car makers are good at
what they are doing, but there have been few entirely new developments. So it
is no wonder that one of the most desirable cars at the moment is the Tesla, a
car which comes from a "startup" and is electrical.

The transition to electrical cars is what is shaking up the industry. All the
special knowledge around the creation of combustion engine is no longer
needed. And a lot of the non-engine components are sourced by suppliers, which
are also happy to supply companies like Tesla. The Tesla shares quite a few
components with the well known German car brands. This allows new car
companies to enter the market relatively easily.

And beyond the fact that Apple can hire car engineering veterans, Apple is an
excellent product design company. The Apple watch should be a warning. All
discussions about the usefulness of smart watches aside, one important thing
is, that Apple enters an entirely new product category, but if you look of the
design and quality of their stainless steel bracelet, it is much better than
most of the Rolex bracelets at a fraction of the price. So I would not be
surprised, if while the pure driving part (electrical motor, suspension) is
rather off the shelf, the overall construction of the car could be both
different and unexpected by the current players.

------
bluthru
In the short term I can see how an incredibly well-made car with AR tech would
make people want to own them.

Long term however I believe cars will just be a shared network of autonomous
vehicles for moving people and things. In other words a shared commodity with
cheap rental prices versus ownership. That doesn't seem like a market for
Apple. But hey, if they're investing in electric vehicles then that's better
for everyone.

~~~
threeseed
> Long term however I believe cars will just be a shared network of autonomous
> vehicles for moving people and things

I doubt it.

The majority of drivers on the road are your typical 9-5 commuters. For them
it will still be more convenient (no need to wait for another car) and cheaper
to just buy a car and there is still something intrinsic to human nature about
"owning" something. People leave all manner of goods in their car.

I see autonomous vehicles taking over taxis however.

~~~
bluthru
>The majority of drivers on the road are your typical 9-5 commuters.

And a car will automatically be at their house every morning. The car will
fill up with people on the same route for cost savings.

~~~
ams6110
>The car will fill up with people on the same route for cost savings.

Yuk. No thanks.

~~~
bluthru
Then pay more for exclusivity: Car ownership, automated car with privacy, or
shared automated.

~~~
spotman
Like uber pool, vs uber normal vs uber premium. Just have to get rid of the
pesky drivers.

------
omarforgotpwd
Tesla's market cap is $33 billion. Apple has $200 billion in cash. Why don't
they just buy Tesla? They'll spend more than that trying to recreate all the
work Teslas already done. I feel like this would help make the future happen
faster.

~~~
btian
Because you can't actually buy 100% of Tesla for $33B.

Elon Musk owns 20% of shares. Does he want to sell?

~~~
omarforgotpwd
Tesla has been working hard to raise additional capital so they can deliver
Model 3. Apple has a lot of capital. Perhaps they could come to an agreement.
An acquisition he didn't agree to would probably be unwise since he's so key
to the company.

------
ksec
The more important question here is, why Bob? Does it mean Apple has an
culture problem that is hard for other high rank managerial grade to fit in?
Why has Bob Retired and then Un-retired?

------
elchief
Apple is pretty good at scale manufacturing and lithium batteries and metal
and better at AI than any car company except Tesla.

Electric cars are much simpler than ICE ones. So they have a chance...

~~~
ryanmarsh
This. Is Apple going to start making a world class ICE from scratch? No. Could
they eventually? Yes of course. But why would they want to?

A car without an ICE is a reduced complexity space to engineer a vehicle in.
I'll bet they can figure out how to iterate from an electric mule to a safe
vehicle just fucking fine. People unfamiliar with the auto industry may also
be surprised to learn just how many parts on a Model S tesla _doesn 't_ make.

But an ICE? Fuck I wouldn't want to start that war with zero patents.

------
ibero
i find it interesting that the project is described as the "autonomous,
electric-vehicle initiative." isn't there a compelling enough productin the
electric vehicle aspect, without the autonomous piece as well?

or does apple believe that the "autonomous" component is the real stand out
feature?

~~~
mdorazio
It really doesn't make sense for Apple to manufacture traditional cars -
they're expensive to produce, have steep support requirements, allow limited
driver interaction points to avoid distraction, etc. Apple's strength is in
combining hardware and software in a way that makes interaction intuitive. If
you have to actually drive your car, there's not a whole lot of room for that
beyond what's already being done with CarPlay. It makes a lot more sense to
create an autonomous vehicle and treat the entire cabin as an interactive
experience that people will spend hours a day playing with and spending money
in.

~~~
nklas
"It makes a lot more sense to create an autonomous vehicle and treat the
entire cabin as an interactive experience that people will spend hours a day
playing with and spending money in."

Would be cool if Apple skipped the "car" and went straight to a stylish and
modern "RV", basically a small apartment that can also drive you around
(autonomously).

Look at this RV tour and imagine something that's a bit bigger in living space
(but same size overall (no big engine, no drivers area etc)):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tylz5sfCAOc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tylz5sfCAOc)

It might not be realistic yet, but in a few years maybe, especially if solar
panels gets better. Which i'm guessing Apple is doing a lot of research on as
we speak...

And if you loose/somebody tows it, you'd just log on to iCloud and use the
"Find my House" feature ;-)

------
csours
> But building a car is complicated and Apple has struggled to define a
> differentiated vision for its vehicle, these people said. Some of the
> automobile industry veterans have clashed with longtime company employees on
> how best to proceed.

~~~
astrodust
Conflict can be a good thing in this case. Instead of Apple running off and
doing the "Apple thing" which isn't grounded, they get pulled back in by
veterans. Likewise, veterans have their assumptions challenged.

~~~
csours
Agreed, it will be very interesting to see if "Apple Scale" [1] thinking works
in automotive design[2] and manufacturing. Apple can buy 10,000 CNC machines
for an iPhone frame, but there are a couple thousand parts at least that size
in a car.

The difference in physical scale between a phone and a car should not be
dismissed... but I'm very interested to see what comes out of the process.

1\. [https://blog.bolt.io/no-you-cant-manufacture-that-like-
apple...](https://blog.bolt.io/no-you-cant-manufacture-that-like-apple-
does-93bea02a3bbf#.smhful8w4)

2\. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjcm-
ru-9iI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjcm-ru-9iI) (this talk is good, but
incredibly frustrating because the slides aren't shown)

~~~
semi-extrinsic
There is also a big difference in the importance of reliability. Half the
people I see with iPhones older than a year have broken screens. But with a
car, you can't engineer it to last for two years and then expect the owner to
scrap it and buy a new one. For all the talk of AR, shiny UX etc, keep in mind
that a car has to retain at least some resale value for at least ten years,
preferrably closer to twenty. Otherwise you'll be left with a lot of angry
customers. Planned obsolesence is out of the question.

~~~
rodgerd
This is true - secondary markets can make a huge difference in how affordable
a car is perceived to be. Cars which are considered to have a long life
command a high resale value, which cuts the real cost of buying new.

------
ourmandave
Bob Mansfield?

But John Sculley is tanned, rested, and ready.

------
Zigurd
So Richard Scary wasn't available?

------
ascotan
another paywall.

~~~
DanBC
"complaints about paywalls are off topic"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989)

