Apple's multibillion-dollar plan to build a car came to an abrupt halt.
On February 28, Beijing time, it was reported that after ten years of competition with Tesla and billions of dollars, Apple canceled the electric vehicle project, and some employees will be transferred to the machine learning and AI departments.
As soon as the news came out, it caused a sensation in the entire car-making circle. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Xiaomi founder Lei Jun, Li Auto CEO Li Xiang, Xpeng Motors CEO He Xiaopeng and others have spoken, either agreeing with the correctness of Apple's abandonment of car manufacturing, or lamenting that the road to car building is not easy. As of press time, Apple officials have not responded.
Secret efforts "decade billions of projects came to an abrupt halt.
Early in the morning of February 28, the most sensational news in the automotive circle was Apple's abandonment of building cars. Tesla CEO Elon Musk was the first to ** the above news, and replied to the two emojis of "tribute" and "cigarette lighting", many people speculated that this was Musk's efforts to pay tribute to potential competitors before withdrawing from the track, and at the same time "lighting cigarettes and eating melons". Musk then left a message under other comments, saying, "The natural state of a car company is death." ”
Musk commented.
Li Xiang expressed his recognition of Apple's abandonment of car manufacturing, saying that Apple's "choice to focus on artificial intelligence is an absolutely correct strategic choice, and the timing is also appropriate."
And He Xiaopeng and Lei Jun both expressed their surprise, He Xiaopeng said, "Ten years after 2024 will enter the knockout round and the All-Star Game." But I didn't expect Apple to come out with such a card in 2024." Lei Jun expressed his shock and said that he knew the difficulty of building a car, and still made an extremely firm strategic choice three years ago.
As early as 2008, during the Steve Jobs period, Apple had the idea of building a car, but at that time, the company focused on mobile phones and did not take action. It wasn't until 2013 that Apple officially launched the "iOS in the Car" in-car system (later renamed CarPlay) at the annual meeting of software developers worldwide, and began to enter the automotive field. In 2014, Apple entered the field of car manufacturing and established the "Titan Car Manufacturing Project".
However, Apple and its CEO Tim Cook have never publicly mentioned the car-building project, referring only to "self-driving systems". The specific progress of the Apple car has been unknown to the outside world.
Since the launch of this project, there have been twists and turns. Initially, Apple planned to build a fully self-driving car, but as time went on, that goal seemed increasingly distant. As a result, Apple adjusted its strategy and began working on a conventional car with a steering wheel and pedals, and plans to use self-driving features on highways. In addition, Apple has been working hard to develop self-driving technology and battery technology to improve the competitiveness and range of its cars.
In 2022, Apple received a self-driving test permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), which marks the beginning of testing its self-driving cars on public roads. In addition, Apple has established partnerships with other automakers and manufacturers to accelerate the progress of its car manufacturing plans.
Apple has never disclosed the exact amount it will spend on the car, but billions of dollars are the amount commonly mentioned in the industry.
Yan Jinghui, a member of the expert committee of the China Automobile Dealers Association, said that automobile manufacturing is an asset-heavy and high-risk industry, which requires a large amount of investment in research and development, production, sales and other links. In addition, Apple has also conducted in-depth research in areas such as autonomous driving technology and battery technology, which require a lot of financial support.
Why did Apple abandon the car business? or has become a "chicken rib".
Lin Zhi, chief analyst at Witdisplay, told reporters that there may be a variety of reasons why Apple has temporarily shelved the car project. First of all, Apple did encounter some technical challenges during the development of the Apple Car and incurred unexpected costs. Secondly, the automobile market is a red ocean, and it is difficult to ensure profitability due to price competition.
Ma Jihua, a senior analyst in the communications industry, said that Apple has been stagnant in building cars for a long time, and at this stage, it may have felt that the timing of building cars was wrong, or that the ability was not enough, so it simply gave up. "If Apple continues to build cars, it is already in a very awkward position. Like Tesla, BYD, and Huawei, they have been on this road for a long time, and it is difficult for Apple's latecomers to catch up. ”
The competition in the field of new energy vehicles has entered a white-hot stage. In 2023, BYD's cumulative sales volume will be 30240,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 619%, surpassing Tesla, directly locking the global new energy vehicle sales champion. Entering 2024, the first battle in the new energy vehicle market will rise and fall. In the Chinese market, BYD launched a "lower electricity than oil" campaign, and many friends have responded.
In addition, Tesla and Huawei have invested a lot in the "intelligent driving" of new energy vehicles, and they have achieved results. There are many multi-scenario intelligent driving of Tesla and Huawei-related models on the Internet**, which frequently arouses heated discussions. Many people believe that although Tesla and Huawei do not have the same technical routes, they are each leading the trend of "intelligent driving" related technologies of new car-making forces, and the era of autonomous driving is expected to come quickly. From this point of view, Apple has not yet reported that it has achieved a breakthrough in related "intelligent driving" technology.
Talking about the impact of Apple's abandonment of car manufacturing, Yan Jinghui analyzed that if from the perspective of local industrial competition, Tesla does have one less competitor, which may be a "good thing" for Tesla. Apple's opt-out may be influenced by a variety of factors, including funding, technical resources, policy environment, and the overall environment of the new energy vehicle market. Considering that the development of new energy vehicles has reached a high threshold, Apple may believe that the current environment is not suitable for its long-term development. And this may also be a wake-up call for the new American car-making forces.
Recently, the new American car-making force has fallen into a trough. There are rumors of bankruptcies or difficulty making a profit. As the U.S. Federal Reserve continues to raise interest rates, high interest rates have suppressed consumer sentiment and lowered market demand, forcing the U.S. electric vehicle industry to lay off workers and reduce production, Xinhua news agency reported. A number of EV makers, including Tesla, have decided to scale back their investments, with some EV makers changing their plans to shift from BEVs to hybrids.
Yan Jinghui believes that China's new energy vehicle industry has made significant progress under the guidance of the best policy. This is also due to the fact that China's new energy vehicle industry chain is relatively perfect, technological innovation is in the ascendant, and various business models and economic forms are competing for development.
China's good automobile manufacturing environment provides a good opportunity for technology companies such as Huawei and Xiaomi to enter the field of new energy vehicles, so that electrification and intelligence can be organically combined," Yan Jinghui analyzed.
Coincidentally, Apple has also had a major setback in its self-developed 5G baseband chips. In 2019, Apple acquired the majority of Intel's smartphone baseband business. Apple's initial goal was to launch its own baseband chip in the fall of 2023. In 2023, there was news in the industry that Apple's plan to independently develop its own baseband chip encountered many difficulties, including too unrealistic goals, insufficient understanding of the challenges involved, and unusable prototypes. Apple is considering ending the multi-year, costly R&D project once and for all. In early 2024, Qualcomm revealed that Apple had extended its 5G modem patent license agreement with Qualcomm until March 2027.
Ray Wang, founder and CEO of Constellation Research, a Silicon Valley consulting firm, told **: "[Apple's decision to stop building cars] is a wise and long-awaited decision. Artificial intelligence is where all action lies. ”
On February 27, Apple's stock price appeared**, closing at 182$63, an increase of 081%。
Artificial intelligence has become a battleground for Apple.
The Apple Car team currently has nearly 2,000 employees and also has hundreds of hardware engineers and vehicle designers. According to the leaked information, many employees of its automotive team will be transferred to the artificial intelligence department under the leadership of Apple's senior vice president John Giannandrea, who will focus on generative AI projects.
This shift is not as surprising as "stop making cars". At Apple's quarterly earnings conference** earlier this month, Apple CEO Tim Cook mentioned that the company is working on generative AI software features that will be available to customers "later this year."
Later this year" could refer to the Worldwide Developers Conference in June, where Apple will present the latest advancements in its operating system. According to Bloomberg Gurman, Apple is planning to bring a major upgrade to its mobile operating system, iOS, iOS 18 is considered one of the most important iOS updates in the company's history. Includes RCS (Cross-Platform Communication Standard) messaging support and Smarter Siri.
Lin Zhi, chief analyst of WitDisplay, believes that AI is a bigger track, and Apple is currently overtaken by Microsoft, and the AI field is everywhere, and Apple plans to invest more resources in the AI field, which can bring more considerable revenue to Apple and ensure revenue and profits.
Ma Jihua said that the current combination of smart phones and artificial intelligence is also a major trend, which may be more important than the change in the appearance of the folding screen, and how to better combine the mobile phone with artificial intelligence may be more important to Apple.
After ChatGPT became popular all over the world, compared with technology giants such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, Apple's investment in the field of artificial intelligence large models seems to be much late, and related products have not been launched for a long time. "This represents a huge risk for a company that considers itself to be the biggest innovator in consumer technology. Gurman commented.
Liu Jiansen, chief analyst of Canalys, an independent analyst of the technology market, told reporters that Apple has acquired many AI companies. However, its deployment of Gen AI (Generative Artificial Intelligence) has not given the market and users a clear perception. "After all, Apple has always preferred to integrate AI features into specific applications. Apple needs to be more competitive in actively experimenting with and deploying new Gen AI features to maintain their image as an innovator. ”
However, Apple is not without layout in the field of artificial intelligence. John Giannandrea joined Apple in April 2018 and assumed the role of Senior Vice President of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Strategy in December of that year, overseeing the AI and Machine Learning strategy for Apple's full range of products and services, as well as the development of Core ML (a machine learning framework running on iOS devices) and Siri (Intelligent Voice Assistant) technologies.
The entire team is committed to tightly integrating machine learning into Apple products and continuously improving them to provide more personalized, intelligent interactions. "Machine learning and AI are critical to Apple's future, not only will they revolutionize the way people interact with technology, but they're already making significant improvements in users' lives." As an AI leader, John will be well positioned to drive our growth in this critical area." ”
In order to highlight the importance of artificial intelligence, Apple has increased its recruitment for machine learning and other related positions, and it claims that the "natural language processing technology" team "is composed of practical research scientists from various fields related to natural language processing." Committed to solving the challenges faced by users around the world. ”
Wamsi Mohan, senior IT hardware analyst at Bank of America, believes Apple's long-term potential is reflected in catalysts such as AI-powered iPhones, service revenues and Vision Pro mixed reality headsets. He noted that large language model applications "were initially driven by software, and then became both hardware and software-driven."
Lin Zhi told reporters that Apple has some core elements of AI, such as computing power, data and algorithms, but it needs more exploration to make generative AI large model products suitable for users. "OpenAI has a first-mover advantage, and once Apple catches up, Apple's ecological advantages will be highlighted, and the experience may be better than OpenAI's. ”
Ma Jihua also believes that a lot of Apple's R&D in history is actually closely related to artificial intelligence, and its talent team can also make a difference in artificial intelligence. "Compared with Apple's leading artificial intelligence companies that have been particularly active in recent years, the gap is not as big as imagined. ”
Beijing News Shell Financial Reporter Lin Zi Sun Wenxuan.
Edited by Xu Chao.
Proofread by Lucy.