MotorTrend: Apple Car Exclusive: Experts Look at What Could Be a Game-Changer

Kim Reynolds Words, Garrett DeBry Design, Roman Mistiuk Digital Model, Mind Over Eye RenderingApril 14, 2016

Exploring the Potential Impact of Apple’s Project Titan

The Apple Car and the Future of Self-Driving Vehicles

Hello.

It’s a moment we’ve all had with an Apple product. When the ordinary awkwardness between you and an electronic device becomes a relationship between you and a friend. Mine happened way back when I used an early Compaq computer. The keyboard clacked. You typed things that looked like C:>find /V into DOS. And stories extruded across a murky screen in a green, constipated font. Then a friend let me use this thing called a Macintosh while she was away. I slowly circled my right hand to get used to its strange, plastic clicker-box.

Suddenly, the screen blinked “Hello.” In script.

I’m not sure if I said hello back, but I might have. Encounter by encounter, Apple has woven a series of obtuse electronic tools into the fabric of our lives. How many times has somebody held up their iPhone and said, “This IS my life!” The automobile of today is a Compaq computer. And Apple knows it.

Steve Jobs knew it way back in 2008, too, when Apple was at an early iPhone crossroads. What to focus on next? An electric car reportedly shared the short list with the maturing multitouch smartphone. Given Cupertino’s less formidable, 2008-era resources, Jobs’ final pick proved insanely right: Its iPhone-fueled piggybank is now a brain-boggling, $216,000,000,000. That’s BILLLLion dollars, as Carl Sagan used to eccentrically over-pronounce it, stashed all around the world. What’s that mean to paycheck-to-Taco Bell types like us? It’s enough to purchase all the stock of GM, Ford, and Fiat Chrysler. Combined. And then buy Detroit again. Some of Apple’s shareholders have been clamoring for Cook and company to snap up Tesla with its loose change.

And sometimes, Apple has nonchalantly jangled that change. In late 2013, Elon Musk met with Apple’s head of acquisitions and later huddled with Jony Ive, Apple’s chief design officer, at a post-Oscars party. Adding to the warm visuals, Laurene Jobs returned her husband’s famously plateless Mercedes-Benz SL55 AMG, getting a Model S. But Musk doubts an Apple deal will advance his goal of creating a compelling mass-market EV. “I don’t currently see any scenario that would improve that probability,” he said.

Read more about our exclusive take on the Apple Car:

• Want to Enter the Auto Industry? Lie Down Until the Feeling Passes
• 13 Coolest Features of Our Apple Car
• Industry Insiders Opine on the Apple Car
• Beyond Apple Car: Can BMW Out-Tech, Out-Style, Out-Think Silicon Valley?
• Video: Tech, Design Experts Talk Apple Car on New “Wide Open Throttle”
• But Will You Love It?

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