Apple should have started development on the Apple Car a lot earlier than it did, according to Space X and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
The real-life comic-book superhero sat down for an interview at Code Conference and said that when it comes to autonomous cars, Google won’t be a competitor because they’re not a car company, however Apple will be.
Musk thinks it may be too late for Apple to be truly competitive though.
“I’d think there will be volume production no sooner than 2020. Is that too late?” Musk said regarding Apple’s rumored car project. “The sheer scale of automotive manufacturing is hard to imagine until you see the plants. The size of the industrial infrastructure is astonishing.”
iPhones might be a lot smaller than Teslas, but if any company knows how to orchestrate the production high-tech devices at an unfathomable scale, it’s Apple. Musk plans to have 1 million cars rolling off the Tesla assembly lines by 2020, so Apple will have to ramp up fast.
Apple’s project titan has been described as a “Tesla graveyard” by Musk in the past. The not-so-secret car project has amassed hundreds of engineers and designers, many from car companies like Telsa, Ford, Mercedes, BMW, and others.
Musk’s interview in the red chairs covered a range of topics much more interesting than his impending car battle with Apple. The tech visionary talked about Space X’s plans to launch the Falcon Heavy rocket by the end of the year as well as whether or not we’re all just living in a simulation.
Watch the full interview below:
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
5 responses to “Elon Musk thinks Apple Car will come too late”
Being an Apple fan, I think he might be right on this one.
Here are the things Apple will need to do better if they are going to compete.
1. Performance. Tesla has great performance. Handling, and 0-60.
2. Battery life, Tesla has cars with 200+ mile range and will be improving that spec over time.
3. Safety. Tesla does have some of the safest cars on the road, especially when one of them broke the safety test equipment. That’s pretty damn impressive.
4. Tesla is already in production, they are already increasing their production capacity and they already have charging stations being built and future charging stations to be opened up.
5. They have their S/W together and they do updates and they haven’t had any problems.
6. They cater to anyone, whereas Apple is going to cater primarily to Apple fans, which is a smaller market segment. They would have to categorically pull out some major ingenious technology to sway a non-Apple fan to buy one of their cars when you have a Tesla or whatever other mfg come out with all electric cars. That’s the problem that Apple has to deal with. If anything, people that have money that use Android or Linux or Windows will most likely choose a Tesla over an Apple car if they are the only two to choose from, BUT other car mfg. are coming out with cars and Google is planning on their own, but I don’t know if Google is going to go after the same demographic/price range.
7. Better styling and unique features. Tesla has those cool Gull Wing Doors on the Model X that even Russ Hanneman would droll over.
As much as I like Apple for computers/smartphones, I don’t have the same confidence in cars. Not until they actually have something to market.
Apple really is almost 11 years behind where Tesla is today. Apple doesn’t have a prototype they can show. Almost 11 years ago is when Tesla showed their first prototype. Where’s Apple’s first prototype?
Apple does have tons of cash, so Apple has that as a big plus, so if Tesla were to run out of cash, Apple would probably be better off if they bought Tesla for cash. But would Elon’s ego allow him to strike a deal with Apple if they were in a cash poor situation where they had to sell? At this point, that’s less likely because Tesla has tons of cars on order that will commence shipping in less than 18 months. Time will tell if Tesla can stay in business.
I wish Apple all the luck on this one, but if Apple is planning on going after Tesla in anyway, they have a tough road ahead and they will not be able to reach full production levels by 2020. I think it might be more like 2025 or 2030, which Tesla will be cruising along making a bunch of different models and they’ll have their costs cut to make it profitable.
“If tesla were to run out of cash…”
Well they don’t make money selling their cars, so that’s a possibility.
Yeah well he can use other funds to help Tesla survive till the gigafactory will be done. After that I think it will have a huge advantage against any competitor. You’d buy a 20.000-30.000 usd electric car wouldn’t you? With gigafactory that sum can be achieved in a few years. Maybe with a 150 miles range as a start, but that’s quite good for a 20.000 usd cars. I can’t back up my claims by facts so don’t quot me on that, but the Tesla evolution is quite like that and even Musk said that gigafactory will produce cheaper, better batteries for its cars.
I’m not interested until I can buy an electric car with +300 mile range. Then I’m in with both feet!
You mean when you can afford? Well, as in any other domain there got to be early adopters that pay the premium and help the product reduce the cost of the tech. So until maybe 300.000+ Tesla 3 models ship to the customers I don’t think there will be a cheaper car then Tesla 3 at around 35.000 usd.