Apple car wild speculation thread

News I’ve read said it would be a mini van I think. :frowning:

R

I don’t think apple fits into the current automotive sector as it stands, They will need to take the next step and disrupt the traditional car market. I could see them buying Uber and Telsa and combine them into the self driven 2020 taxi / car replacement subscription service.

The current car market model does not give the user a good experience in many ways. Up-front cost of the car, fuel costs depreciation costs, the inconvenience of organizing repairs and servicing etc. Then there is the stress of driving on the traffic clogged streets.

Would you not pay 100-200 dollars a month to be driven to work in a well designed space that has every song / tv show and movie on demand and removes all of the negatives of actual car ownership.

I cant help but think that our kids/ grand kids will think it was unbelievable that we had to physically drive and fill the car with flammable liquid.

I cant help but think that our kids/ grand kids will think it was unbelievable that we had to physically drive and fill the car with flammable liquid.

Poor dears… I reckon they’ll just have to learn to hot rod what they get. Like we did :wink:

My current employer, Pacific Gas & Electric, just submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission for approval it’s planned intention to install 25,000 electric vehicle charging stations across central and northern California. They’ll be sprinkled around shopping centers, government offices, retail centers, etc. Along with slower charging “commuter stations” there will also be a string of “fast charge” stations along the main north/south highways which should come as good news to the prospective owners of these AppleCarts. Not too mention Tesla. Statewide California currently has only about 6,000 public charging stations (60% of which fall within PG&E’s service area).

Of course this will come at a price to it’s ratepayers (as opposed to it’s stock holders); $653.8 million. If the CPUC approves the plan every rate payer in PG&E’s service area can expect their electricity bill to go up about $0.70 per month, for five years.

Sounds like a step forward doesn’t it? But PG&E wants the CPUC to give it wide ranging authority over the design of physical facility design, hardware specification, vendors, and network support services. Still sound good? Does that sound like a roadblock to creativity to you? I wonder how Tesla views this proposed authority over its product development?

So like it, or not, all Californians within the PG&E service area will all be driving an electric vehicle, even if we are still far, far, short of the 1,000,000 registered electric vehicles by 2020 as mandated by Governor Brown.

Next maybe we can discuss PG&E’s tiered rate fees (based on time of day) to encourage energy conservation… but not just now.

I am Governor Jerry Brown. I always smile and never frown.

Lew, suppose they use Tesla’s supercharger as the model?

suppose they use Tesla’s supercharger as the model?

They might. “One” would assume that PG&E would seek out leaders in current EV technology (ha, that was pun) before heading down a path of their own. But keep in mind, this is a top-heavy, 110 year-old corporation inhabited by many, many layers of ladder climbers.

About a year ago at their Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant facility they installed sixty solar powered LED light towers around the remote areas of the security perimeter. This was done to eliminate thirty odd diesel-powered light tower plants under the guise of eco-friendliness, rather than running underground secondary conductors to those locations. As an aside this plant produces in excess of 18,000 GIGA WATTS per year; roughly 7% of the entire electrical power requirements of California, so having the energy to power their security lighting wasn’t a real issue.

Regretfully, the in-house designed towers do not stay on through the night. In fact they do not stay on, at all; they “flicker” on and off, never quite coming up to full illumination. As it occurred the designers placed the solar panels and light sensing elements, (intended to switch the tower(s) on at sunset) at the bases of the luminaires rather than the top (to reduce wind load (the plant is right on the coast)). The result is that as each tower constantly queries it surroundings it senses “dark” one moment, and starts to power up. But when it’s neighbor sense the “light” from that tower it shuts down, it again “sees” darkness and starts to power down, ad nauseum; the effect is sort of like gas lighting. This goes on all night long. The problem has been recognized, but not yet corrected.

So yeah, I suppose that they might use Tesla’s technology as a model.

1 Like


Boxy mini-van as discussed.

I could see them doing a box like that.

Not if they use any of their $178 billion to buy a wind tunnel! Maybe they can do a new Rumpler Tropfenwagen…

Scott, awesome wagon. Not sure what Newson can do with that but the interior space is perfect, except for the fact that my ideal driverless car fits the maximum possible flatscreen across the front wall.

Wind tunnel efficiency I don’t see as important as these vehicles will form tight pelotons and get the efficiency from the column.

This one kind of reminds me of the cars in Spielberg’s 2001 movie A.I. -

1 Like

ha, totally, and I thought that was a pretty good movie prop car.

I don’t know, I just don’t think we’re ready for pelotons of driverless cars yet. The technology is getting close, but the regulatory and liability aspects are so daunting. Rational people can see how many lives would be saved even with half-baked buggy driverless cars, but we are not governed by rational people.

I don’t think it’s compatible with the traditional private ownership model either, people’s typical lazy neglect and non-maintenance would cause too many problems. Is a car share / Uber sort of model something Apple would go after?

The more I think about this, the more interested I am in seeing what they come up with. If they really try to do this, it has to rank right up among the biggest risks a public corporation has ever taken.

Apple will also build a new city, like Atlantis, just off the California coast. They will only allow iCars there. Black turtle necks in winter, t-shirts in summer. Daft Punk will constantly play. Some call it paradise.

Lots of strategic decisions to be made…but what about the styling.

IF they stay with the reduced form vocabulary of softend rectangles and circles. I can see THAT:

to bear a modern day interpretation of THAT:

Could end up more condensed:
stock-footage-tin-can-rotates-on-white-background.jpg
mo-i

You know you have made it when people are making satires about you!

I’ll know I made it with hundreds of billions sitting a warchest. :slight_smile:

This is what I want from a auto-driving car.

1 Like

I feel like I had a toy car like this when I was a kid:

I have a buddy that worked on a symmetrical car when he was interning at GM. It’s completely doable to end up with something nice.

Love that. One of my friends design the cube. I’m going to send this to him! :slight_smile: