Apple has decided to give up building cars!
It should be the most ** news in the technology circle these days, right?
Originally, we thought that it was as good as Apple, the world's science and technology leader, anyone in China can engage in cars, real estate cars, and mobile phones ......How can it be as powerful as Apple can't make it?
In 2014, Apple launched the "Project Titan" (Project Titan), investing huge funds and human resources, from Chrysler, Ford, Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and other well-known European and American car companies to recruit more than 1,000 engineers, planning to create a subverting new energy, intelligent driving car.
Until February 29, 2024, Apple announced that it would stop the program, and all employees of the automotive team would be transferred, and the investment of tens of billions of dollars would be nullified.
Apple abandoned self-driving technology because it was behind schedule and could not meet expectations.
How far could it not be as expected? It is far behind the advanced level of the world (China).
According to the plan, the Apple car will be launched in 26 years, ** for 100,000 US dollars, with L4 intelligent driving capabilities.
However, in January this year, the automotive team reported that the plan would be postponed to 28 years, and it could only reach the L2+ level of driving ability at most, and even if it was sold for $100,000, there would be little profit.
What level is L2+?
More than a dozen car companies in China have reached the L2+ level, and Huawei has even broken through the L3 level.
Then the Apple car team said that it would take another four years to burn money to catch up with China's current level.
Isn't that a fuss? Apple can't see the hope of leading in technology, and secondly, from the perspective of cost, it has no advantage over China's ** chain (in 24 years, China has installed intelligent driving technology close to the L3 level on 300,000 yuan level cars, and achieved commercial mass production, but Apple's 700,000 or so cars have not made much profit), so they can only disband the car team.
In the entire Western world, not only Apple stopped making cars, but Mercedes-Benz, a high-end car brand, also gave up its all-electric car plan, and Toyota has always resisted electric vehicles.
Surprisingly, we found that our automotive industry has not only achieved lane change and overtaking in the field of new energy, but has even been far ahead in just two years!
Compared with traditional fuel vehicles, the advantage of new energy vehicles lies in electric drive, which is not only fuel-efficient, but also realizes intelligent driving.
Fuel vehicles are limited by mechanical transmission, which makes it difficult and expensive to achieve autonomous driving.
Apple's route to enter the game early is right, why did it get up early and invest a lot of money, but it still failed in the end?
The reason is that there is less manpower.
The Apple car team has gone from 1,000 people at the beginning to more than 2,000 people now, which seems like a lot, but if you compare it with China's new energy companies, there are more than a dozen of them that have invested manpower to reach this level.
Huawei has invested 7,000 engineers to research intelligent driving technology, and BYD has equipped an intelligent driving team of more than 4,000 people. The R&D team of 2,000 people in China is only the starting threshold for the development of intelligent driving.
And the 2,000 people of the Apple car team are not only developing intelligent driving technology, but also trying to develop their own vehicle manufacturing!
At the same time, Apple has no plans to cooperate with external companies to build cars, and it does not even plan to use China's automobile industry chain!
Compared with Huawei's 7,000 people and BYD's 4,000 people, they are only team investment in intelligent driving, and the number of engineers who do hardware is far from this!
Therefore, Apple's 2,000 people, if they want to work together on software and hardware, can build an L2+ in 2028, which is already very good!
Intelligent driving technology is a new technical field, Europe and the United States have no technical accumulation in this area, everyone is basically the same running line, inChina has a large number of engineers and capital investmentIn the background, it is purely normal for the progress of technology research and development in Europe and the United States to be seriously behind.
Let's talk about the news that made Apple collapse, in 24 years, we not only got the L3 level by Huawei, but in fact, even the L4, we are already starting to test.
On February 21, 2024, China's first L4 new energy autonomous commercial vehicle began official road testing on non-closed roads in Inner Mongolia for logistics and freight.
Chinese automakers have successfully developed Level 4 intelligent driving technology, obtained test licenses, and started testing on civilian roads.
This is surprisingly fast and even faster than approval. The news put pressure on Apple's board. It is expected that by 2028, China will break through the L5 level of unmanned driving technology, and think that Apple will not be able to achieve the L2+ level ...... at that time
Therefore, it is basically useless for American companies to be tough on the new energy track, but American companies admit defeat, but the United States does not easily admit defeat.
On March 1, the United States** announced that Chinese automobiles threatened the United States*** and planned to take action to protect the American auto industry.
On March 2, Raimondo said that "if there are 3 million Chinese cars on the road in the United States, China can turn them off at the same time," ......
The United States has done something similar to that of Japan, a close ally, and we should not be too surprised that history repeats itself today.
When the Japanese worked hard to develop and make their semiconductor and automobile industries surpass those of the United States, the action taken by the Americans was to smash the Japanese radio directly in front of the Congress.
And then smashed the Japanese car.
Does this move by the United States have an impact on Chinese car companies?
We looked at the data on the Internet, and there is no United States in the top 10 of China's new energy vehicle exports, and even the United Arab Emirates buys more Chinese new energy vehicles than the United States.
It is no wonder that as long as we have awesome technologies and products, the United States basically does not allow us to sell, Huawei mobile phones, and now new energy vehicles ......Therefore, the targeted policy of the United States on Chinese cars actually does us very little, but we can let the United States play a role.
In the end, we can put back the gloves on the European and American cars for any crimes that the United States has fabricated against the Chinese cars, because these crimes are formulated by the United States.
He hit my ...... first”
Raimondo said that he was afraid that 3 million Chinese cars would turn off on the road in the United States at the same time, and we were afraid that 30 million European and American cars would turn off on the road in China at the same time. It is the sales volume of Chinese cars in Europe and the United StatesOr is there more sales of European and American cars in China?
There are many Buick, Cadillac, Ford, Tesla and other cars on the streets of China, but there are almost no Chinese-made cars on the streets of the United States.
Tesla and Apple phones in the United States can be sold in China, but Chinese cars and Huawei phones cannot be sold in the United States.
How did the United States, a once liberal leader, begin to close itself off from the rest of the country?