It has never been a simple matter for a company to enter the automotive industry from scratch. Not to mention those "PPT Rider" conferences, even if Apple is replaced by "There is money to do whatever it wants," the auto-driving car project will also have to deal with various difficult issues.
According to The New York Times reported road that Apple had with the German automakers to develop autonomous vehicles of negotiations have failed, and these include a car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz and BMW.
Although people involved in the negotiations were unwilling to discuss the matter more, it was revealed that Mercedes-Benz and BMW do not want Apple to obtain control of the data related to design and production. This is also the case during Apple's manufacturing process. The biggest problem.
Nowadays, Apple has turned to cooperate with Volkswagen. The two signed an agreement to transform the current Volkswagen T6 van into Apple’s internal unmanned commuter vehicle and provide Apple employees with commute service
According to a report on Apple's vehicle building program previously reported by Ai Fan Er (Micro Signal: ifanr), as early as 2015, Apple hopes to build its own "Apple brand" driverless car from scratch, that is, from hardware to software. Responsible for himself, " Project Titan " project was born, the original planned product was debuted in 2019.
However, because there was not much technology accumulation in the automotive R&D, Apple could only look for help from other automakers, and Mercedes-Benz and BMW were better choices at that time. However, in 2016, Apple and Mercedes-Benz BMW had some disputes, especially in the ownership of the data , each of them had their own calculations.In the issue of car control, Apple executives also discussed for a long time whether it was "automatic or semi-automatic". According to reports of the New York Times at that time, Apple Chief Designer Jony Ive hoped that Apple’s driverless car was fully automatic, a bit similar to Google’s Waymo; but Apple’s Steve Zadesky, the director of the car at the time, hoped to be semi-automatic, probably. Like Tesla now.
Not only that, Apple's development team also had fierce debates over the choice of programming languages for software systems. This controversy lasted for a long time. Eventually, the fully automated driving solution won. Steve Zadesky then chose to leave the Apple Auto team. The newly appointed supervisor is Bob Mansfield and is one of Apple's veterans. After he took office, Apple's "build a car plan" from the independent design and production of cars into a focus on self-driving car software level of research and development, that is to create "Apple Automotive Systems."
This point was also followed by Cook's personal recognition , during which Apple also fired some employees related to hardware research and development, fully committed to the software project.
In 2017, Apple replaced the “Project Titan” with a new program called “PAIL”. It mainly provides shuttle service for driverless vehicles to and from Apple Infinite Loop and Palo Alto Park. It also performs system technology. test.
However, this technology is not new. We have already seen similar cases of self-piloting buses to and from passengers in certain cities in Finland. According to people familiar with the PAIL program, the current progress of this project lags far behind the original plan, and it also consumes most of the energy of the Apple auto team, and Apple has not given any specifics for projects other than unmanned buses. business plan.
A number of former employees stated that Apple's vacillation in the development direction of the automotive project has greatly affected the morale of the internal team. Apple originally invested more than 1,000 employees for the Titan project, but hundreds of people have chosen to leave the company within two years. Looking at the situation now, Apple ’s project of self-driving cars continues. In October 2017, a modified version of the Lexus RX with a number of sensors overhead was exposed, and the number of Apple’s driverless test vehicles jumped from an initial of less than 10 to 55 in May of this year. GM’s 104 test vehicles, which are mainly used for data acquisition and driverless testing.
In addition, Apple has also been seeking formal car partners. Early Apple chose Canada Magna, followed by BMW and Mercedes, and even had contact with Nissan of Japan, BYD of China, and McLaren of the United Kingdom. However, they basically failed to return.
The real reason is ultimately one: Apple wants to dominate, but depots are reluctant to hand over the data to Apple. But now, Apple seems to have identified the identity of the public as a partner, due to the previous "emissions door" scandal, the public also hopes to find new development projects. According to the New York Times, in the current transformation of the Volkswagen T6 van, Apple has adjusted its dashboards and seats, and plans to add various sensors and electronic equipment, but the chassis and wheels have basically remained. .
According to the plan, the project named PAIL will be completed before the end of 2018, but whether or not it can go according to the schedule, whether Apple's cooperation with the public will expand to other areas is still unknown. This is not the first time we have heard of problems within Apple's internal team, including many users who previously expressed dissatisfaction with Siri and HomePod , because there are many functional imperfections and compromises, and ultimately all the factions and internal factions within the team. Internal friction is involved.
On the one hand, taking into account the large size of Apple's senior body, the probability of encountering internal personnel problems is also higher than other small companies; but on the other hand, Apple is a latecomer in the field of self-driving cars, whether it can insist on negotiations Whether the depot is willing to hand over its own data to Apple in the closed ecological direction of its own “one-handedness” is also a question worthy of discussion.
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