This question is doomed to have no answer.
But what is certain is that Apple is fully deploying its auto business.
In July, 20 18, because of the theft of Zhang, an employee of Apple in China, the outside world was able to get a glimpse of the scale of Apple's employees involved in the automobile business: at that time, about 3.7% of Apple's employees (the number of Apple employees in 20 18 was about130,000) participated in the automobile business more or less.
Nearly 5,000 employees of the company know about the existence of the project, and among these employees, about 2,700 "project core employees" have access to some specific databases.
Even if the SPG (Special Project Team) project team of Apple's automobile business has laid off employees in the past two years, the total number of teams in this business at this stage should not be less than 2,000.
A recent report released by AppleInsider mentioned that Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty predicted that Apple would invest nearly $654.38+09 billion in R&D this year, an increase of about $5 billion compared with 2065.438+08.
Not surprisingly, most of the expenses of these new R&D will be invested in the Apple car project.
The annual investment is $654.38 billion, and the core project team of more than 2,000 people reflects Apple's great ambition in the automotive industry.
In the early years, there were two unsolved mysteries in the industry that touched people's hearts: first, whether Huawei would build a car; The second is whether Apple will build a car.
Now Huawei has decided not to build a car, but to be an "incremental parts supplier" in the era of smart cars; Whether Apple makes a car is still a mystery.
What we expect in the future is: Does Apple want to create an "iCar" that "redefines cars" for consumers? Or become a top supplier like Bosch in the era of smart cars?
This mystery has been going on for six years.
1. Complete vehicle or supplier? Apple's route of making cars is different.
Apple launched the "iOS in the car" program at the World Developers Conference (WWDC) in 20 13, which was the earliest known action for Apple to set foot in the automobile industry.
In 20 14, apple put "iOS in the car" on the product, and CarPlay was born, which is a mapping scheme between mobile phone and vehicle-mounted machine.
Users can support "phone", "music", "map", "information" and third-party audio applications only by connecting the iPhone to a vehicle that supports CarPlay, and control the central control panel of the vehicle through Siri.
At this year's Geneva Motor Show, Apple reached cooperation with Honda, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari to promote CarPlay.
Also on 20 14, a project codenamed "Titan Project" inside Apple was exposed.
According to the news at that time, this project is Apple's "building a car" project, and Apple hopes to build a brand-new car that completely subverts the automobile industry.
Titan's R&D base at that time was located in a secret building code-named SG5 near Apple headquarters. In the park where the building is located, Apple has also built an "automobile work area" and a "repair shop".
At the same time, Apple has been hiring people from Google, Tesla, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, FCA and other companies with attractive salaries to recruit automotive and software engineers for Titan.
In the following year, the number of members of the Apple Titan Project increased to more than 65,438+0,000. It is rumored that even Jony Ive, then Apple's chief designer, joined the "Building a Car" project and was responsible for vehicle design.
At 20 15, 12 and 10, Apple registered three domain names, namely "apple.car", "apple.cars" and "apple.auto", and its move into the automobile industry became more and more obvious. However, these domain names have not been enabled.
At this stage, Steve Zadesky, Apple's vice president of product design, is the general manager of Titan Project, and Steve reports directly to Apple CEO Cook.
Steve became the commander-in-chief of Apple's "Building a Car" project, partly because of his experience in the automobile industry. He worked in Ford for three years before Apple.
However, Steve Zadesky didn't lead the Titan project for a long time, because there were route differences within the project team: the whole vehicle and software platform wavered, and the research and development direction was unclear.
The end result was that Steve Zadsky was out and replaced by bob mansfield, a meritorious figure of Apple.
Known as a "hardware genius", Bob retired from the position of senior vice president of hardware engineering at Apple in 20 12. In the middle of 2065438+2006, he was re-hired to lead the Titan project at Apple.
After Bob took office, he immediately began to reduce the project team, focusing on the development of smart car software and corresponding solutions, including autonomous driving systems.
In fact, before Apple CEO 2065 438+07 was interviewed by Bloomberg to talk about the "car-making" business, the outside world only knew that Apple had invested in the Titan project, but little was known about the specific form of Apple's car business.
It was also during this period that the name "Titan Project" gradually faded and was replaced by a more common name: Apple Special Project Team (SPG).
As the first official announcement of Apple's auto business, Cook said in an interview with Bloomberg: "We focus on autonomous driving system, which is the core technology we think is very important. We think it is the mother of artificial intelligence to some extent. 」
Cook's implication is that Apple will not build the whole vehicle, but be a system supplier.
For the research and development of self-driving, Apple obtained the road test license for self-driving cars in California in April 20 17.
2065438+At the end of August 2008, Apple's self-driving prototype was photographed by the media during the road test. These vehicles are based on the Lexus RX450h SUV model, and a series of sensors are installed on the roof. For this reason, Apple designed the top of the vehicle in an integrated way.
According to the data released by the California Traffic Management Bureau, in 20 18, Apple had 52 self-driving cars on the road in California, which increased to 66 in 20 19.
Many veterans and backbones of Drive.ai joined Apple's Special Project Team (SPG) and began to contribute to the research and development of Apple's autonomous driving technology.
In fact, in addition to all kinds of news about Taita project and special project team, there are many tidbits about "Apple Car":
In addition to the tidbits, Apple is really promoting the development of its automobile business.
Nearly three years after Cook publicly stated Apple's auto business, many people in the industry still can't believe that Apple's auto business will only stay at the level of autonomous driving system.
Many people think that its ultimate goal will be vehicle manufacturing, and everyone is looking forward to Apple's "iCar".
2. People who join Apple's auto business.
Whether "iCar" can come true depends on the talent pool behind it.
Since 20 14, Apple's automobile business line has gradually gathered all-round talents such as product definition and design, vehicle engineering, quality management, power battery technology, autonomous driving technology, in-vehicle infotainment and operating system.
For the car-making team, this configuration is luxurious.
However, over time, some talents stayed at Apple, while others were poached or left by other companies.
But what is certain is that the current Apple SPG project team still has a complete team configuration from vehicle definition, system integration to engineering management to product manufacturing, as well as software and hardware.
At the highest level, Steve Zadesky was the first person in charge of Apple's "building a car" and later left because of the development route. He was replaced by "hardware genius" bob mansfield.
Time came to August of 20 18, and he served as the senior vice president of R&D and production of the company. Doug Field, who was highly valued by Musk internally, returned to Apple after leaving Tesla for five years and became the vice president of Apple SPG.
Doug Field was previously called "CEO without CEO position" in Tesla, which shows that his personal talent is widely recognized. After Doug joined Apple, he helped bob mansfield manage the car business together.
In terms of in-vehicle infotainment and operating system, Apple hired Johann Jungwirth, CEO of Mercedes-Benz North America R&D Center, in 2011October, and his external title was Mac Engineering Director at that time.
Actually, Johann is developing a car entertainment system. However, a year later, John went to audi ag and became a CDO (Chief Digital Officer). 2065438+August 2009, he jumped ship again and joined Mobileye team as vice president of Maas business.
It was because of John Jungworth's departure that Apple made up its mind to hire Dan Dodge, founder and CEO of QNX.
This senior management talent in the field of in-vehicle operating system finally joined Apple on 20 16 1, so Apple poached a large number of QNX personnel, mainly developing in-vehicle operating systems.
At the level of autonomous driving research and development, at the beginning of 20 15, Apple hired Paul Furgale, deputy director of the autonomous driving laboratory of the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, which is known as "the best unmanned researcher in Europe". Three years later, Paul Fogel left Apple and joined Facebook.
2065438+In August 2005, Jamie Carlson, firmware manager of Tesla Autopilot, joined Apple SPG, and his specific business responsibilities were unknown. But he only stayed in Apple for 1 year, and was poached by Weilai Automobile. Now he is the vice president of Weilai Autopilot.
Waymo has not escaped the clutches of Apple SPG.
2065438+June 2008, Jaime Waydo, head of Waymo software and hardware integration, joined Apple SPG as the senior director of autonomous driving; 20 18 10, Ryan Cash, head of Waymo platform system engineering, joined apple SPG as the director of automatic driving. These two still work for Apple.
The most powerful evidence that Apple wants to build a smart electric car is that it also has a layout in the field of power batteries.
20 14 In June, Apple violently poached A 123, an American power battery manufacturer, and took away the main R&D engineer as a whole. Later, several engineers who jumped ship were also sued by A 123 for violating the non-competition agreement.
Apple's violent poaching behavior has also frightened many companies in Silicon Valley.
Then on 20 18, 12, Apple acquired Soonho Ahn, head of forward-looking research and senior vice president of Samsung SDI. Soonho joined the company, leading its global battery development department.
This eldest brother is Korea's top power battery research and development expert. In the future, under his leadership, Apple will build a "high wall" in the field of power batteries for electric vehicles.
In the field of vehicle engineering directly related to "building cars", Apple has also recruited many top R&D and management talents in the traditional automobile industry, including Steve Kenner, a veteran with nearly 40 years of experience in the automobile industry. He has more than 65,438+00 years of work experience in General Motors, FCA and Ford.
From April of 20 15, he stayed at Apple for four years, and then went to the ATG department of Uber.
Similar to talents like Steve Kenner, Apple also recruited Doug Betts, former senior vice president of FCA quality management, and Alexander Hitzinger, former technical director of Porsche sports cars. But these people all left Apple later.
SPG still has a large number of senior talents in vehicle engineering:
Judging from the above talent pool, Apple has also established a relatively complete team system in vehicle engineering, vehicle interior and exterior decoration and powertrain.
With such a comprehensive team configuration and determination to invest heavily, Apple's "building a car" plan seems to be ready.
Recently, Apple announced many patented technologies in the automotive field, and thousands of patents have been applied for before.
These patents involve many software and hardware technologies, such as automatic driving, map navigation, positioning service, automobile AR/VR, human-vehicle interaction, virtual rearview mirror, intelligent door, intelligent anti-collision beam, intelligent seat and so on.
We have more reason to believe that Apple's ambition will not stop at the research and development of autonomous driving system.
Of course, even if there is no "Ica" in this world, it is excellent to create a new "Bosch".
Can Apple, which has created countless miracles in the field of smart phones and personal computers, create greater miracles in the next generation of smart terminals?
We will wait and see.