Ask HN: When is Apple's EV going to be released?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28437914

by jppope • 5 years ago

11 27 5 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Curious if anyone knows the release date for the Apple Electric vehicle?

kingkongjaffa• 5 years ago

I suspect as Dyson learned, Apple is also learning: it's not as easy as it looks.

Automotive is a hard game both in engineering and in building a reliable supply chain.

Tim Cook can definitely boast a track record when it comes to supply chain so they are in a _better_ place than Dyson at a guess.

here's an interesting thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/pgl51b/apple_reported...

PhantomGremlin• 5 years ago

it's not as easy as it looks

I'd love to see Apple try, even if it's just for the lulz.

Apple struggled for years to deliver a functioning laptop keyboard. A car is a bit more complicated.

How many dongles would you need to buy before the car had reasonable functionality? Would the power source be optional?

The other confounding factor is that an Apple car might feature "self driving". I'd also lol at that, but Musk has demonstrated that vaporware is quite acceptable there.

lostlogin2• 5 years ago

Apple struggled for years to deliver a functioning laptop keyboard. A car is a bit more complicated.

One of the biggest car makers found it cheaper to pay out for customers that got burned up by faulty cars, as fixing them all was too expensive.

Apple choosing to sort its keyboard issues in a way that initially didn’t include fixing a bad design would appear to be following a well trodden path.

slater• 5 years ago

Next Thursday.

sebastien_b5• 5 years ago

When they make an acceptable product:

- easily serviceable (not just by Apple, like for example getting windshield fluid refilled - no, I’m serious)

- properly usable; you shouldn’t have to flip it over to charge it (like their current mice) and other silly things like that.

Given how much of a control freak Apple is, and how their motto is basically that they’ll tell you what you want (instead of simply giving you what you want), until that changes drastically (read: management changes), I don’t see a release happening anytime soon (unless they want to risk it potentially being another flop[1]).

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28438754

DevKoala2• 5 years ago

What the customer wants is not often what they need, listening to your customers without understanding what they need can be the killer of innovation.

Henry Ford has a famous quote:

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses

I don’t think anybody needed a mouse that needs to be flipped to be charged. However, among the dozen things Apple got terribly wrong, there are also a handful ones that they got so right, that became fundamental pillars of technology.

sebastien_b5• 5 years ago

Hubris and arrogance (and “courage”) can only get you so far:

- iPod Hifi (which Jobs claimed would completely replace his audio gear )

- the butterfly keyboard

- the touchbar

- the original (uber pricey) Homepod

- the trash can (also pricey) Mac Pro

- and I’m pretty sure in a few years’ time we’ll all be looking back at how stupid the “notch” was

johnny_b_g3• 5 years ago

Henry Ford has a famous quote: > If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses

False: https://checkyourfact.com/2019/10/10/fact-check-henry-ford-q... and https://medium.com/@adrianh/faster-horses-50ff8bb1bb62

mwint• 5 years ago

Egads, the mouse thing again, I thought that myth had died. I have one. I charge it for about five minutes a month. It complains when it hits 10% and I plug it in while I make morning coffee.

It’s fine.

Apple has made many real mistakes, let’s focus on those.

sebastien_b5• 5 years ago

It complains when it hits 10% and I plug it

10%? Wow, you're lucky - mine consistently only lets me know when it's down to 1%, and only once I need to use it, like now.

For all its $billions spent on their other stuff, you'd think they could hire someone to figure out a better mechanism to let the user know when they should charge their device. As someone once (sarcastically) posted on the MacInTouch (RIP) forums (I'll paraphrase):

"It so unfortunate that Apple can't come up with anything that would analyze the user's use of the device, and predict when it should be charged based on that usage... some learning computer of some kind...."

jamil7• 5 years ago

It’s fine.

Yeah it's not the worst but it still removed functionality from a product for arbitrary reasons. Jony Ive just didn't seem to understand/care how people actually use a mouse with both the magic mouse and the hockey puck mouse.

ixacto• 5 years ago

Tesla tells you what parts that can be replaced on your car, along with a ton of privacy invasion.

Predictions: Tesla is the new Android of cars

Apple is the apple of cars

Apple doubles market cap to 5.0T by 2030-2035. The cap jump will be due to the introduction of the iCar and also getting non-invasive blood glucose monitoring to work. Just a guess.

adoxyz• 5 years ago

If I recall the mouse decision was deliberate to avoid people having the mouse plugged in all the time. So it was more of a planned user experience rather than apple not knowing what they're doing (for better or worse). Besides the mouse charges in like 5 minutes anyway.

sircastor• 5 years ago

Automotive is super hard. Unlike tech, it’s a very heavily regulated industry in the United States.

Apple is the kind of company that doesn’t enter a market unless they feel like they have something to contribute. If they’re jumping into this market, they’re making sure what they’re doing is going to get them where they want to be.

The Apple car has gone from “sure thing” to “cancelled” and back. I would not even bet on its assured release at this point.

tonyedgecombe• 5 years ago

My guess is Apple looked at the trend of increasing technology in cars and how poorly equipped the existing manufacturers are to deliver on that then decided they could do better.

I'm doubtful as well.

xyzzy21• 5 years ago

A major distraction from what they actually know how to do.

There are still so many things undone with their current product line but I guess they can't see the forest for the trees at this point, leadership-wise.

runawaybottle• 5 years ago

If every car on the road needs to be replaced with an EV/Hybrid Self-driving-assist over the next three decades, then the automotive industry is a growth industry like tech. That means, if you simply try, you can get a piece of the pie.

They need to hurry up.

sebastien_b5• 5 years ago

every car on the road needs to be replaced with an EV/Hybrid

What needs to happen is for [almost] every car on the road to be replaced. Period.

We need better transit systems. We need better developed urban areas. We don't need yet another car manufacturer pushing for more car ownership (most of which sit idle for 99% of the time, requiring massive land areas to accommodate).

Car ownership as it currently stands (polluting or not) is not sustainable.

sigjuice• 5 years ago

At the very least, it better have proper CarPlay.

Ask HN: When is Apple's EV going to be released?

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