What Killed the Apple Car?

Summary

苹果公司在探索了十年后，决定放弃造车项目“泰坦计划”。这个项目曾被寄予厚望，旨在打造一款像iPhone一样革命性的汽车。苹果曾考虑过多种创新设计，如无方向盘、全触摸屏控制等。然而，由于战略失误、生产难题和利润担忧，项目经历了多次领导和方向的变动。最终，随着人工智能和电动车市场的现实挑战，苹果决定将资源重新分配到其主要的人工智能目标上，结束了这一雄心勃勃的项目。

Takeaways

• 🚗 苹果公司在研发汽车项目十年后最终放弃，这个项目曾被认为可能像iPhone一样具有革命性。
• 🔍 苹果公司对汽车行业的野心很大，曾考虑收购特斯拉，并计划打造一款超越通用汽车和特斯拉的汽车。
• 🛠️ 苹果公司在汽车项目上投入了巨额资金，招募了来自保时捷、兰博基尼、奥迪等公司的顶尖人才。
• 🎨 苹果的设计总监Jony Ive曾有设想，要重现20世纪50至60年代的老式大众汽车，但目标是打造未来的汽车。
• 🔄 苹果汽车项目经历了多次战略调整，包括从制造汽车转向开发先进的无人驾驶技术。
• 🚗 苹果曾考虑将自动驾驶技术应用于中国的滴滴出行，但随着时间的推移，这一计划也发生了变化。
• 📉 随着特斯拉市值的增长和共享出行业务的盈利前景不佳，苹果对汽车项目的兴趣和方向发生了变化。
• 🔄 苹果汽车项目在2021年再次调整，从自动驾驶技术转向直接与特斯拉竞争的电动汽车。
• 📉 到了2023年，随着人工智能成为科技行业的焦点，苹果在电动汽车市场的前景变得不那么明朗。
• 🏁 2024年2月26日，苹果宣布正式终止汽车项目，将资源重新分配到人工智能领域，以支持iPhone等主要产品。

Q & A

苹果公司在汽车项目上的初步想法是什么？

苹果公司最初的想法是制造一款像iPhone一样革命性的汽车，他们有信心能够超越通用汽车和特斯拉，并且有野心去做一些前所未有的事情。

苹果汽车项目的内部代号是什么？

苹果汽车项目的内部代号是Project Titan。

苹果公司在汽车项目上遇到了哪些战略错误？

苹果公司在汽车项目上的战略错误包括方向不明确，不确定是应该与特斯拉竞争电动车市场还是与谷歌竞争自动驾驶技术，以及在生产和盈利方面的困难。

苹果公司在汽车项目上有哪些大胆的设计想法？

苹果公司考虑过只销售白色的汽车，没有方向盘和正向座椅，乘客通过触摸屏和Siri控制一切。

为什么苹果公司最终决定放弃汽车项目？

苹果公司最终放弃汽车项目是因为自动驾驶技术的发展不如预期，共享乘车业务的盈利前景不明朗，以及电动汽车市场的竞争加剧和利润率下降。

苹果公司在汽车项目上的投资有哪些？

苹果公司在汽车项目上进行了大量投资，包括雇佣来自保时捷、兰博基尼、奥迪等公司的人才，以及投资中国的滴滴出行。

苹果公司在汽车项目上的领导层有哪些变动？

苹果公司在汽车项目上的领导层经历了多次变动，包括Bob Mansfield和Doug Field等人的加入和离开，最终由Kevin Lynch接手。

苹果公司在汽车项目上测试了哪些技术？

苹果公司在汽车项目上测试了自动驾驶技术，包括在加州道路上测试装有苹果自动驾驶技术的雷克萨斯测试车辆。

苹果公司在汽车项目上的未来计划是什么？

苹果公司计划将汽车项目中的人才和资源重新分配到其主要的人工智能团队，以支持iPhone等现有产品的未来成功。

苹果公司在汽车项目上的投资额是多少？

苹果公司在汽车项目上的投资额达到了数十亿美元，用于研发和人才招聘。

苹果公司在汽车项目上的最终决策是什么？

苹果公司的最终决策是停止汽车项目，将资源和人才转移到人工智能领域，以支持公司在AI技术上的发展。

Outlines

00:00

🚗 苹果汽车项目的兴衰

苹果公司曾秘密研发汽车，代号为Titan项目，目标是制造出像iPhone一样革命性的产品。该项目吸引了来自各大汽车制造商的顶尖人才，包括保时捷、兰博基尼和奥迪等。苹果的设计总监Jony Ive曾有想法重现20世纪50至60年代的大众汽车风格，但目标是打造未来的汽车。项目初期，苹果考虑了多种创新概念，如只销售白色汽车、无方向盘和面向前方的座椅，以及通过触摸屏和Siri控制一切。然而，随着时间的推移，项目遇到了战略失误和方向混乱，导致内部分歧和领导层变动。最终，苹果决定放弃造车，专注于开发先进的无人驾驶技术。

05:00

🔄 苹果汽车项目的多次转变

随着Uber上市后的表现不佳，以及特斯拉市值的快速增长，苹果对汽车行业的看法发生了变化。特斯拉的成功让苹果认为汽车行业有更大的利润空间，这促使苹果重新考虑其汽车项目。苹果在亚利桑那州的沙漠中有一个秘密的测试设施，2017年在那里展示了其无人驾驶技术。然而，随着自动驾驶技术的成熟尚需时日，苹果的项目方向再次发生变动，决定制造一款直接与特斯拉竞争的电动汽车。到了2023年，随着人工智能的兴起，苹果在电动汽车市场的前景变得不那么明朗，最终在2024年2月26日宣布终止Titan项目，将资源重新分配到人工智能领域。

10:02

📉 苹果增长放缓与新增长点的探索

苹果在经历了多年的快速增长后，目前正面临收入增长放缓的挑战。投资者对于苹果未来的增长点感到好奇，其中Vision Pro被看作是可能的增长点之一。然而，如果Vision Pro实现了苹果的预期目标，它可能会取代iPhone。苹果需要新的产品类别来补充收入，而不是从现有产品中分流。随着电动汽车市场的盈利能力受到质疑，苹果放弃汽车项目对整个行业来说并不是一个积极的信号。

16:13

🔊 Siri在iPhone中的更多应用

Siri作为苹果的语音助手，不仅能够执行基本的命令，如发送短信和设置计时器，还能执行更复杂的任务，如重启iPhone、管理密码和使用'查找我的'功能。这些功能展示了Siri的潜力和iPhone的智能功能，预示着苹果可能会继续在智能手机领域进行创新。

25:12

🚀 智能手机和自动驾驶的未来展望

这一段内容似乎是对智能手机和自动驾驶技术未来发展的展望。提到了智能手机的智能特性，以及电动汽车和自动驾驶技术的体验。尽管内容不完整，但可以感受到苹果对于这些技术的重视，以及它们在未来可能带来的变革。

Keywords

💡苹果汽车

苹果汽车是苹果公司曾经秘密研发的一个项目，代号为'泰坦计划'。这个项目旨在开发一款革命性的汽车，类似于iPhone对手机行业的影响。视频中提到，苹果公司曾考虑过收购特斯拉，但最终决定自主研发。苹果汽车项目经历了多次战略调整和领导层变动，最终在2023年被宣布终止，研发团队被重新分配到苹果的其他项目中。

💡泰坦计划

泰坦计划是苹果公司内部对苹果汽车项目的代号。这个项目始于2014年，苹果公司投入了大量资源和人才，包括从保时捷、兰博基尼、奥迪等知名汽车公司挖角。项目的目标是创造一款具有完全自动驾驶功能的电动汽车，但由于战略失误和市场变化，最终未能实现。

💡自动驾驶

自动驾驶是苹果汽车项目的一个重要目标，苹果公司曾致力于开发最高级别的自动驾驶技术，即五级自动驾驶（Level Five Autonomy）。视频中提到，苹果公司在自动驾驶技术上的投入，使其在与特斯拉、奔驰、宝马等汽车制造商的合作中拥有更多的选择。然而，随着技术发展的不确定性和市场变化，苹果最终决定将重点转向人工智能领域。

💡电动汽车

电动汽车是苹果汽车项目考虑的另一个方向。视频中提到，苹果公司曾考虑过与特斯拉竞争，开发自己的电动汽车。电动汽车市场在特斯拉的成功之后变得日益吸引人，但随着市场成熟和竞争加剧，电动汽车的利润空间开始受到质疑。苹果公司最终决定放弃直接进入电动汽车市场，转而专注于人工智能技术。

💡人工智能

人工智能是苹果公司在放弃苹果汽车项目后决定重点发展的领域。视频中提到，苹果公司拥有世界上一些最优秀的人工智能专家，他们正在开发可能永远不会公开的系统。随着人工智能技术的兴起，苹果公司需要在消费者和生成式AI引擎之间建立更好的接口，以保持其产品的竞争力。

💡特斯拉

特斯拉是电动汽车行业的领先企业，其在电动汽车和自动驾驶技术方面的成功，对苹果汽车项目产生了影响。视频中提到，苹果公司曾考虑过与特斯拉合作，或者在电动汽车市场上与特斯拉竞争。特斯拉的成功也促使苹果公司重新考虑其在汽车行业的策略。

💡共享出行

共享出行是苹果公司在汽车行业中考虑的另一个商业模式。视频中提到，苹果公司曾投资中国的滴滴出行，这表明苹果公司对将自动驾驶技术应用于共享出行服务感兴趣。然而，随着Uber上市后的表现不佳，共享出行业务的盈利前景变得不那么乐观，这可能影响了苹果公司在这一领域的战略决策。

💡利润

利润是苹果公司在评估苹果汽车项目可行性时的一个重要考量因素。视频中提到，苹果公司担心汽车项目可能无法实现像iPhone那样的高利润率。随着电动汽车市场的竞争加剧和利润率下降，苹果公司最终决定放弃直接进入汽车市场，以保护其股东的期望和公司的盈利能力。

💡技术革新

技术革新是苹果公司在汽车行业中寻求的核心目标之一。视频中提到，苹果公司曾试图通过技术创新来颠覆传统的汽车行业，就像iPhone颠覆了手机行业一样。然而，由于技术发展的不确定性和市场变化，苹果公司最终决定将重点转向人工智能和其他技术领域。

💡战略失误

战略失误是导致苹果汽车项目失败的原因之一。视频中提到，苹果公司在项目的方向和优先级上存在分歧，这导致了领导层的变动和项目的多次重启。战略上的不确定性和市场预测的失误，最终导致了苹果汽车项目的终止。

Highlights

苹果公司放弃了开发汽车的计划，这个项目从未公开存在过，现在也永远不会存在。

苹果公司在汽车项目上的工作始于十年前，他们曾有将汽车行业革命化的想法。

苹果公司曾自信能够超越通用汽车，制造出比特斯拉更好的汽车。

苹果公司的秘密项目“泰坦计划”经历了起伏，最终以失败告终。

苹果公司CEO蒂姆·库克在2017年的一次采访中暗示了汽车行业的三大创新方向。

苹果公司考虑将汽车作为硬件平台，在此基础上提供服务和体验。

苹果公司曾考虑收购特斯拉，但最终决定自行开发汽车。

苹果公司从各大汽车制造商挖角人才，包括保时捷、兰博基尼和奥迪。

苹果公司的设计主管乔纳森·艾夫曾有重现20世纪中叶大众汽车巴士的想法。

苹果公司在汽车项目上遇到了战略失误，导致项目方向混乱。

苹果公司在2016年面临高层团队内部分歧，难以决定汽车的生产方式。

鲍勃·曼斯菲尔德接手项目，决定专注于开发最先进的无人驾驶技术。

苹果公司投资中国的滴滴出行，可能将其无人驾驶技术应用于共享出行服务。

2019年，苹果公司决定全力支持开发具有完全自动驾驶技术的电动汽车。

苹果公司在2021年经历了领导层变动，这影响了汽车项目的方向。

苹果公司意识到自动驾驶汽车的实现可能还需要十年或更长时间。

苹果公司最终决定放弃自动驾驶技术，转而开发直接与特斯拉竞争的电动汽车。

2023年，苹果公司重新考虑了其汽车项目，因为电动汽车市场增长放缓。

苹果公司决定将汽车项目团队的资源重新分配到人工智能领域。

苹果公司在2023年2月26日宣布正式终止汽车项目。

苹果公司将专注于人工智能，以支持其主要的AI目标和iPhone的未来成功。

Transcripts

This is not the Apple car,

because officially it never existed,

and now it never will.

Ten years after starting work on a car, Apple has given up.

The company had some wild ideas about the future of the car,

as we're about to tell you.

The vehicle was supposed to be as revolutionary as the iPhone.

Carmakers were running scared.

The iPhone had eviscerated massive businesses like Nokia and Motorola.

What if Apple did the same to the car industry?

They really felt this strong confidence They could take out General Motors.

They could make a better Tesla.

And they had this ambition to do something that really had not been done before.

It was never going to work.

This is a tale of grandiose plans to invent a new kind of car.

Undone by strategic mistakes.

The rise, fall, rise

And then death of what was codenamed Project Titan

Apple is incredibly secretive.

The company doesn't talk about new products until they're ready.

So never publicly admitted to working on a car.

In fact, the closest that Apple CEO Tim Cook ever

got to doing so was in this interview with me in 2017.

There is a major disruption looming.

He proceeded to lay out three innovations

that he predicted would upturn the car industry.

The first was electric vehicles.

If you've driven an all electric

car, it's actually a marvelous experience.

Plus, you have ride sharing on top of this.

So services like Uber and Lyft and finally self-driving cars.

We’re focusing on autonomous systems.

Clearly, one purpose of autonomous systems is self-driving cars.

we sort of see it as the mother of all A.I.

projects.

Each of those technologies seem to present an opportunity

to disrupt the $2 trillion car industry.

Initially for the rationale behind the car

was what Apple does, delivering a piece of hardware.

And the car is that piece of hardware. And then built on top of that hardware,

that becomes a platform to deliver services and experiences.

So in that respect, the car followed the Apple strategy.

Let's scroll back to 2014,

when it all started, three years before my interview with Cook.

The beginning of the Apple car project was actually the company exploring

if it should buy Tesla.

They ended up not doing that and instead decided

to start exploring what it would take to build their own car on their own.

They put some of the brightest minds at the company on this.

The hardware division was granted billions of dollars

in funding to hire anyone it needed inside Apple or outside Apple.

They hired people from Porsche, Lamborghini, Audi,

you name it, to come over there and build a car.

Jony Ive, Apple's design chief at the time, had this idea

to recreate the old school Volkswagen

bus from the 1950s and the 1960s,

But the idea was not to build a car for people who love cars today,

but build the future of the car.

All sorts of ideas are thrown around.

They consider only selling the car in white.

There'd be no steering wheel or front facing seats.

And passengers would control everything with touchscreens and Siri.

For all the big ideas and blue sky thinking

however, the project soon starts to hit problems and there's confusion over

whether the priority should be to compete with Tesla in electric cars

or Google, which was making big leaps in self-driving vehicles.

By 2016 there was a ton of disagreement on the Apple executive team.

There were difficulties, figuring out a way to actually produce the vehicle.

There were concerns over profits.

Enter Bob Mansfield, a semi-retired executive

who had developed products such as the MacBook Air.

It's the first of many leadership and direction changes to hit the project,

and it'll entail laying off hundreds of engineers.

Mansfield tells them that rather than building a car, Apple

will focus on developing the most advanced driverless technology.

Level five Autonomy.

By building the self-driving brain they really gave themselves options.

On one hand, they were able to partner.

They talked partnerships with Tesla, with Mercedes Benz, with BMW,

but it also gave them opportunity to later go back to build their own car

and have this apple like experience.

Apple also invests in Didi, the Chinese equivalent of Uber.

So it might one day put its self-driving technology into

Didi's ride sharing service.

The company plows ahead with testing and reports start coming in

of Lexus test cards kitted out with Apple's driverless technology

appearing on the roads of California in 2017,

Fast forward two years to 2019.

Uber goes public and it's a big disappointment that shows

ridesharing isn't a great business with no prospect of Apple like profits.

So one of Cook's three pillars starts to look

a little bit less revolutionary.

At the same time.

Tesla goes from a $50 billion valuation

to a trillion dollar company in less than two years.

Electric vehicles suddenly seem more appealing.

I think the early success of Tesla led people believe that

maybe there was opportunity in the car industry to work with bigger margins.

That helps give Apple the confidence to make another pivot.

Around that time, Doug Field, the Tesla executive who developed the Model 3

and took over the Apple car project in 2017,

calls a meeting to show off what his team has been able to pull together.

Apple has this secretive several hundred acre test facility

in the heart of the Arizona desert outside of Phenix.

they gathered a bunch of senior people in the Apple car

team alongside Tim Cook, and others.

Cook is impressed by what he sees, according to people who were present,

and says he'll finally throw his full weight behind the project.

Apple will build an electric car that has full driverless technology.

But even that decision doesn't last long.

Field leaves to join Ford in 2021 and is replaced by Kevin Lynch,

a longtime Apple manager who worked on the watch.

What's your plan, car?

It's becoming clear that autonomous

cars are a long way away, maybe even a decade or more.

So there's another flip flop away from self-driving tech.

It's the least ambitious version of the project yet.

Make an electric car that competes directly with Tesla.

But by 2023, the outside world is changing.

Artificial intelligence starts consuming the tech industry.

And after Tesla's early successes, electric vehicles

are facing a reality check.

November 2022 saw the release of chat GPT.

As the world goes A.I. crazy

Google has its own big A.I.

division and Microsoft is the biggest investor in Open AI,

the developer of chat GPT.

And while there's plenty of AI innovation under the hood of Apple's products,

it's still unclear what Tim Cook's big generative AI play will be.

Where Apple needs to catch up is in that interface

between the consumer and the generative A.I. engine

that has a name like Copilot or Gemini.

And the electric vehicle market is starting to lose its luster with

sales growth slowing for three reasons.

EVs are expensive and high interest rates mean they're even harder to afford.

The first generation of EVs are now hitting the second hand market

and they're not holding their value as well as combustion engine cars.

Established carmakers are starting to release their EV models,

meaning competition is tougher and profits are lower.

One specific part of Apple's success is that on the hardware side,

they have by and large between 25 and 30% margin.

That is impossible on a car.

All of this provokes another final rethink at Apple.

The three megatrends that Cook highlighted in 2017 have all lost their appeal.

Self-driving isn't happening anytime soon.

Ridesharing isn't a great business, and electric vehicles probably can't

deliver the kinds of profits that Apple shareholders expect.

They have some of the world's best minds on Artificial Intelligence

working on this system that may never come to light because it is so difficult.

On the other hand, they have this separate AI team trying

to catch up to Open AI and Microsoft and Google on generative A.I.

So Tim Cook makes a big decision. On February 26th,

after most people have left work, the car team gets

an email announcing an all hands meeting the next day.

And people started to realize something is up.

Then 10 a.m.

the next morning, they all gathered into conference rooms and around their desks

and they tuned in to a video announcement. It was a 12 minute presentation.

They were pretty succinct.

Thank you for all your efforts.

We're immediately winding down Project Titan.

The Apple car is dead.

Those working on self-driving technology will join Apple's main A.I. group.

The rest have to find new jobs inside or outside the company.

Repurposing the people that were working on Project Titan to A.I.

makes sense given the opportunity in A.I.

It solves a lot of problems for Apple.

It gets a bunch of top A.I.

minds working on its main A.I.

goals,

and it can reallocate the billions of dollars a year it's spending on the car

towards developing A.I.

That tech could

be essential to the future success of the iPhone,

the device that still accounts for the majority of Apple's revenue.

Look at this chart.

After years of massive growth, Apple is struggling to grow revenue.

Without the car, investors are wondering where the next leg of growth

will come from.

Some think that could be the Vision Pro.

The problem is that if that device achieves everything Apple

wants over the next few years, it could end up replacing the iPhone.

You may not own both.

It's something that has the real potential in the next half decade

to replace your iPhone, to be the future of that product.

But Apple needs supplementary revenue.

They need wholly new product categories that don't take away from others.

And as carmakers start to question just how profitable the electric vehicle

market can be, the fact that Apple has given up is hardly a vote of confidence.

fast that the company has a huge influence over

opening AI.

This column has found that all three

Siri makes it easy

to get a lot more done on your iPhone with just your voice.

Using a simple command, you can quickly send a text message

while you're driving or set a 30 minute timer during your workout.

No hands are needed, but serious capable of so much more than you might know.

For example, did you know you can restart your iPhone with just your voice?

And that's just the start.

You probably already know you can save your usernames and passwords

across all of your Apple devices.

But did you know you can access them quicker with Siri?

You can also turn off an annoying alarm.

Just tell Siri, turn off my alarm to silence it.

Need to find that family or friend using that.

Find my feature. Just ask Siri where it is.

And then the contact name and a small find my window will appear

at the top of the screen showing you exactly where that person is.

You that?

Yeah. Yeah.

Look, I have.

Apple is going to reinvent the phone.

most advanced phones are called smart phones.

iPhone in the incredible

that it puts into people's hands has changed the way we

there is a major disruption looming there,

if you've driven an all electric car.

It's actually a marvelous experience plus you have ride

sharing on top of this

we're focusing on autonomous systems.

clearly, one purpose of autonomous systems is self-driving cars.

There are others,

outside.

Which was quite close.

to produce.

So Now that you're a registered D driver partner.

You can either pick up your welcome pack from your

that.

It's a good that he would

beautiful

to have a to