Released in 2025? Will the Apple Car, an electric car that will change the map of the industry, pose a threat to automakers? - Automotive information magazine "Best Car"

　The IT world has continued to bring out revolutionary products in completely new areas that have never existed before, such as the iPhone and iPad, which continue to record astonishing sales growth every year. Giant Apple.

　The Apple car, which is currently being actively developed by Apple and is rumored to be the world's first fully autonomous driving car, will not only bring dramatic changes to the automobile industry, but will also bring about dramatic changes like the iPhone before its debut. Is it possible to become a monster product that will change the world into something completely different after its debut?

When will the Apple Car go on sale? We followed up on Apple Cars to see if they pose a threat to automakers. Text/Hiroshi Yanagawa, Photography/SONY, Adobe Stock (top photo = leonovo@Adobe Stock)

■About 3 years until the debut of the hands-free Apple Car, which has no steering wheel or pedals and is capable of fully autonomous driving !?

　From the beginning of the project, there were twists and turns in the direction of development, and due to the high technical hurdles, it was thought that Apple Car would never be completed.

　However, a surprising scoop was made by Bloomberg, an American financial information service company, that "currently, the development of fully autonomous driving technology is progressing rapidly, and the Apple car may debut as early as 2025." Reported on November 19, 2021.

　According to this, the development of a completely new interior and exterior car capable of fully autonomous driving based on artificial intelligence, hands-free and without steering wheel and pedals, is underway, aiming to be announced in 2025. It is said that there is.

However, it is said that it may be a few years before we can actually see it running on public roads.

　It is said that it will take several years to develop a fully autonomous driving system even for leading companies such as Tesla, and that the latecomer Apple, which is said to have started development around 2014, will be able to develop it in 5 to 7 years at the earliest. I was told it would take years.

　The news that Apple might overtake its rivals in the blink of an eye was received with positive surprise.

　The development of the Apple Car is currently being led by Kevin Lynch, who was responsible for the software development of the Apple Watch and created the completely new Apple Watch from scratch.

　Although Mr. Lynch has no experience in the development of automobiles or autonomous driving, he is said to have gathered highly skilled engineers in various fields, including cutting-edge artificial intelligence.

Mr. Lynch's predecessor was Mr. Doug Field, who played an important role in the development of Model 3 at Tesla and moved to Apple in 2018. But Field will move to Ford's chief advanced technology officer in September 2021, with Lynch as the new project leader.

Just a few months later, the development of the Apple Car, which will be able to drive completely autonomously anywhere, progressed rapidly, and it was reported that the development of the core part of the processor dedicated to the fully autonomous vehicle had already been completed for the most part. was taken.

　While the development of hardware and software is progressing, the business model, that is, the strategy of "how to make money with Apple Car" is also being considered.

　It is undecided whether each consumer will purchase an Apple Car like in the automobile industry so far, or whether Apple Car will be provided as a sharing service like fully automated taxis. However, given Apple's business development so far, it's likely the former approach, Bloomberg reports.

　However, there are different views on this business model.

　A report on the Apple car by two stock analysts from Morgan Stanley, a US financial services company, which was announced around the same time and caused a great deal of attention, said, ``It is not something that is purchased by individuals, but a subscription or a public car. It will be provided as a shared service like transportation."

　In addition, it is expected that the spread of completely autonomous vehicles, so-called level 5, will be "extremely slow due to many technical, ethical, legal and regulatory issues", About 100,000 fully autonomous vehicles will be sold to , mostly outside the United States.

In addition, he pointed out that the appearance of the Apple car would be "the ultimate bearish factor for the EV market (which has been touted so far)" and that it would have a significant impact on the stock prices of rival companies such as Fisker, Lucid, and GM. ing.

　However, it states that "the markets that Apple has entered into have a history of achieving growth that far exceeds the pace of growth that was expected due to Apple's entry." He also said that the growth of the self-driving car (autonomous car) market will be accelerated by the appearance of the Apple car.

``The commercialization of the Apple car served as an opportunity for investors to rediscover the appeal of Apple's platform, which has one billion customers with high brand loyalty. Over 40 trillion yen) and market capitalization (about 300 trillion yen at the end of November) will double.”

　The bullish comment also caught my eye.

■Who (where) builds Apple Cars?

　Information about who (who) will build the Apple car was difficult to come by from the secretive Apple. As the most recent and most specific news, in January 2021, multiple Korean media reported that they would form a partnership with South Korea's Hyundai Motor Group for the production of Apple cars.

In response to this news, Hyundai Motor's stock price rose by nearly 20%, but about a month later, Hyundai announced that they were not proceeding with negotiations regarding the development of autonomous vehicles with Apple, denying the partnership. Made from automobiles.

　At the moment, it is not clear who will actually build the apple car. At one point, Japanese OEMs such as Nissan and Mazda were also rumored to be partners.

　Apple, of course, does not have the know-how of automobile production, but just as Toyota, for example, in the development of a new car, shifted from the attitude of "developing the hardware first" to "software first", the development of the Apple car First of all, it seems that the top priority is to establish an autonomous driving system instead of the entire car.

Specifically, sensors and cameras that use laser light to perceive the surrounding environment of the car and detect obstacles, instantaneously process the huge amount of data and image information from them, and determine the position of the car and its surroundings. An ultra-high-performance processor that can instantly correct information.

　And based on the analyzed information, the car can safely run, turn, and stop, and communicate a huge amount of data at ultra-high speed via the Internet to enable fully autonomous driving anywhere. hardware and software for

　It seems that they are simultaneously developing a battery that is equal to or better than existing EVs, a management system for it, and an entertainment system that provides a completely new way to spend time in the car.

When I hear this, I am reminded once again that Apple's accumulation of processor development, sensing, communication, battery technology, etc. has been utilized in the development of Level 5 vehicles, and there are many areas where synergies will work.

　Even Tesla, which launched the Model S in 2012, has yet to develop this package that enables fully autonomous driving. Uber also sold its self-driving research and development unit last year.

　Like Apple, it is no exaggeration to say that Google, which has literally inexhaustible financial strength and resources backed by it, has recently lost a lot of human resources from the development team of the fully autonomous vehicle Waymo. That being said, there are no shortage of examples to show how difficult it is to complete this package.

　Apple has actually replaced four development managers in seven years, and has a history of laying off hundreds of engineers in 2016 and 2019.

　For existing automakers, in addition to huge investments in the development of EVs and zero-emission cars, which are absolutely essential for survival, investment in fully autonomous driving technology, which requires even greater funds and resources, is being made in parallel. It is a very heavy burden to do.

　For manufacturers other than the so-called Global Big 3 (Toyota, GM, VW) and Tesla, which is leading in this field, the option of partnering with Apple is highly likely to appear very attractive.

　But that choice may be a double-edged sword.

　We consumers have little interest in who makes the iPhone's housing and display, and which manufacturer supplies the parts inside.

　Also, many taxi users don't really care what car manufacturer makes their taxi and what kind of engine specs it has.

Similarly, if Apple completes a fully autonomous driving system and can provide mobility services that are completely different from the past, in the extreme, it will not matter who makes the Apple car. It may even come.

　Most of the added value is provided by Apple, and car manufacturers may become close to complete subcontractors.

The next page is: How will the world change after Apple cars?