Chedongxi (public account: chedongxi)
Author | James
Editor | Xiaohan
Market value of 2.4 trillion U.S. dollars (approx. 15.55 trillion yuan), what progress has Apple made in building cars?
After half a year, Apple’s enthusiasm for building cars is still unabated, but analysis points out that it may take another 35 years for the vehicles to be officially launched. During this period, Apple’s cooperation, team, testing and patents are still needed to analyze Apple’s progress in building cars.
Recently, some media reported that an Apple team secretly visited South Korea and held talks with LG’s power battery department and SK Innovation. Based on previous news, Apple seems to hope to establish a complete electric vehicle supply chain in Asia, through design and development in the United States, and finally assembly into complete vehicles in OEM factories. This is also similar to Apple's layout in the consumer electronics field.
At the same time, since 2021, Apple’s car-making team has also experienced some personnel changes, including the resignation of 3 of the 13 people in the core team. At the same time, Apple is also enriching its automotive team through high-paying recruitment and internal job transfers.
In addition, Apple has obtained at least 25 car-related patents this year, covering many aspects such as 3D object detection, autonomous driving strategies, mobile car keys, and vehicle security. Apple’s smart electric cars are accelerating. for reality.
Recent news from various sources shows that Apple is negotiating with many manufacturers in Asia, hoping to establish a complete auto parts supply chain. For an electric vehicle with autonomous driving capabilities, the core components that need to be provided by suppliers are the power battery and vehicle manufacturing platform.
According to the Korean media "The Korea Times", a team from Apple recently visited South Korea secretly and held high-level talks with LG, SK Innovation and Hanwha Group on the automotive supply chain.
One of the industry executives directly involved in the talks said: "Apple has been conducting business negotiations with companies in the semiconductor and display technology fields in South Korea. In addition to its smartphone business, Apple is also working on its electric vehicles. The business is looking for partners in South Korea.”
In the interview, he also confirmed that Apple held talks with LG, SK Group, and Hanwha Group. He said: "Without cooperation with Korean manufacturers, Apple will not be able to complete its electric car plan. Apple has negotiated with LG, SK Group and Hanwha Group, but the negotiations are still in the early stages."
"The Korea Times" also reported, citing sources, that Apple held high-level meetings with SK Innovation, a subsidiary of SK Group, and LG Magna e-Powertrain (a joint venture between LG and Magna). However, both SK Group and LG said it was difficult to confirm whether the meeting actually took place.
Prior to this, Apple also held talks with some Chinese lithium iron phosphate battery suppliers, including CATL and BYD.
However, Apple hopes that battery suppliers can build factories in the United States, which was previously confirmed by a White House official.
However, Chinese companies are currently reluctant to build factories in the United States. Korean companies LG Energy Solutions and SK Innovation are both building battery cell factories in the United States, and Samsung SDI has also stated that it is considering building a factory in the United States.
Korean media analysis said that Apple will be more inclined to cooperate with these companies building factories in the United States.
At the same time, in the field of vehicle manufacturing, the industry has always believed that Foxconn will OEM automobile products for Apple.
There are two most direct reasons. First, Foxconn has always been Apple’s largest OEM factory. If Foxconn has the conditions to produce automobiles, Apple may consider letting it OEM. Second, Foxconn’s The car-building plan is also progressing.
Just last week, Foxconn released its second-quarter financial report and held a post-earnings conference call. In a conference call, Hon Hai Group Chairman Liu Yangwei said: "We plan to start mass production of cars in the United States and Thailand in 2023. As part of our global automotive strategy, we are negotiating with some regions in Europe to build factories."
Liu Yangwei said that Foxconn’s Thailand factory mainly supplies the Thai and Southeast Asian markets, with an annual production capacity of 15.2 million vehicles. In addition, Foxconn is currently selecting a location for its U.S. factory, with three states to choose from, including Wisconsin. At the end of 2023, Foxconn's U.S. factory will begin mass production to help Fisker and other car companies build cars.
Foxconn not only wants to build a car manufacturing factory, but also has its own car manufacturing platform MIH (Mobility In Harmony), and has established the MIH Open Electric Vehicle Alliance. Car companies, developers and suppliers are welcome to join,* **Build electric cars together. Currently, the MIH Alliance has 1,851 members from 54 countries and regions. This month alone, 34 new members joined MIH.
At the 2021 China Automotive Chongqing Forum held in June this year, Foxconn MIH CEO Zheng Xiancong said that Foxconn’s MIH platform can provide customers with three cooperation models: 100, 80 and 50. Among them, 100 cooperation means Foxconn produces "OEM cars"; 80 cooperation means Foxconn provides all hardware (including appearance, chassis), and the software part is completed by partners; 50 cooperation means Foxconn can sell platform technology directly to customers.
Foxconn MIH has a variety of cooperation models, which means partners have more choices. Foxconn’s car-making door is open to Apple, and I believe Apple will also accelerate its car-making layout.
While Apple is accelerating the establishment of a global automotive parts supply chain, it is also accelerating the research and development of automotive projects within the company. However, in the past six months, although Apple has hired big names in the automotive industry, it has also lost several capable veterans.
Apple Automotive Management Team (grey indicates those who have recently resigned)
Of the 13 people in Apple Automotive’s core leadership team that Chexixi previously reported, three have resigned this year. At the same time, Apple also hired two big names from the automotive industry with high salaries, and also transferred senior executives from other product departments to the automotive project.
1. Many Apple executives have joined the car-building project
Recently, news broke that Kevin Lynch, Apple’s vice president of technology, has joined the car-building project. Previously, Lynch had been responsible for Apple’s car-building project. Apple Watch development. After joining Apple in 2013, he led the development of Apple Watch, a new product category, and also led Apple's health care strategy.
Kevin Lynch, Apple Vice President of Technology
Before joining Apple, Lynch served as CTO of Adobe. Earlier, Lynch worked at a start-up company, which was acquired by Adobe in 2005 for US$3.4 billion (approximately 22.029 billion yuan).
Foreign media "Business Insider" reported that a person familiar with the matter pointed out that Lynch joined the car-making team a few months ago. Another person familiar with the matter also said that Lynch will continue to be involved in Apple Watch development and health work, and his title of vice president of technology has not changed.
Che Dongxi noticed that at Apple’s WWDC held in early June this year, Kevin Lynch also released the Apple smart watch operating system watchOS 8 as the vice president of technology.
In fact, Kevin Lynch is not the first Apple executive to be transferred to the car-making team. Last year, John Giannandrea, Apple's senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy, was appointed director of the automotive project, and former director Bob Mansfield officially retired. Doug Field, executive director of Apple's Titan project, reports directly to John Giannandrea, who reports directly to Apple CEO Cook.
Apple Senior Vice President John Giannandrea
At the beginning of this year, Apple officially announced that Dan Riccio would no longer serve as head of the hardware department and would focus on a new company as vice president of engineering. projects, reporting directly to company CEO Tim Cook. Apple has not made it clear what this new project is, but there are rumors that Dan Riccio is joining the car-building project.
Dan Riccio, Vice President of Apple’s Engineering Department
2. Hire automotive industry giants with high salaries of one million euros
At the same time, Apple has also hired at least Two technical giants in the automotive industry, one of whom is Ulrich Kranz, known as the father of the BMW i8, and the other is Manfred Harrer, the former vice president of Porsche chassis development and Cayenne product line.
In June of this year, Bloomberg reported that Apple hired Ulrich Kranz, a former BMW executive and CEO of electric vehicle startup Canoo, to join the car-building team. Kranz will report to Doug Field, executive director of automotive programs.
Former Canoo CEO Ulrich Kranz
Speaking of Ulrich Kranz, this person has worked at BMW for nearly 31 years, including 9 years from 2007 to 2016. Senior Vice President of the i Product Line, during which BMW launched two electric vehicles, the BMW i3/i8, so Kranz is also known as the father of the BMW i3/i8.
Over the years, Apple and BMW have had a close relationship. In 2014, Apple CEO Tim Cook tried out a BMW i8 outside Apple headquarters. Tim Cook himself is also a BMW 5 Series owner.
Apple CEO Tim Cook test-drove a BMW i8
After 2016, Kranz briefly served as CTO of Faraday Future, a new car-making force, and then founded his own electric car startup Canoo . While working at Canoo, Kranz served as the company's CTO and CEO, and will no longer serve as Canoo's CEO after April this year.
Speaking of the company Canoo, it actually has some connection with Apple. In January this year, foreign media The Verge reported that Apple held a meeting with Canoo in the first half of last year, and Apple proposed various cooperation plans such as investment and acquisition. This is because Apple has a high interest in Canoo’s skateboard-building platform.
At that time, Canoo chose to accept an investment from Apple. However, negotiations between the two parties eventually broke down, and Apple ultimately failed to invest in Canoo. At the end of last year, Canoo chose a backdoor listing on Nasdaq.
Since Apple failed to succeed in investment and acquisition, it finally chose to poach the CEO of this start-up company.
In February this year, Apple also hired Manfred Harrer, vice president of the Cayenne product line, from Porsche. The German version of foreign media "Business Insider" reported that Harrer is considered one of the best engineers in the Volkswagen Group.
Manfred Harrer, Vice President of Cayenne Product Line
Although Harrer is the Vice President of Porsche, he behaves very low-key. There was no official announcement when he resigned from Porsche, and no explanation was given to the media. Sources said Harrer said goodbye to colleagues late last year but did not disclose the reason for his departure. "Business Insider" analyzed that this is because Harrer still has a non-competition agreement with Porsche, so he himself did not disclose any information.
When the foreign media "Business Insider" interviewed a Volkswagen Group manager, he said that American headhunters are very powerful. He said that Harrer is a top talent, very calm and low-key in dealing with people, but the work he does is benchmark.
It is reported that Harrer’s annual salary at Porsche exceeds 600,000 euros (approximately 4.58 million yuan), but it is estimated that his annual salary at Apple will exceed one million euros.
3. Three people from the 13-person core team have resigned.
However, three people from Apple’s core car-making team have resigned this year. Benjamin Lyon is responsible for sensor research and development, Jaime Waydo is responsible for autonomous driving safety, and Dave Scott is responsible for the engineering management team.
Among them, Benjamin Lyon had been working at Apple for nearly 22 years before leaving. Since the first generation of iPhone, he has been responsible for sensor development. In 2014, he joined Apple's car-making SPG team and is also a veteran of the car-making team. level person.
Benjamin Lyon, Apple’s former head of sensor R&D
In 2014, Benjamin Lyon established the autonomous driving team at Apple and served as the most senior manager of the sensor department. During this period, Lyon also experienced several stagnations in Apple's car-making project. Before leaving, Lyon reported to Doug Field and was a very core veteran in the autonomous driving team.
After leaving his job, Benjamin Lyon joined Astra, a space flight company, as chief engineer.
At the same time, Jaime Waydo, the head of autonomous driving safety, also resigned this year. She had previously worked at Google’s autonomous driving company Waymo (before it was split) for nearly five years, and then joined Apple for nearly three years.
After leaving her job, she joined a start-up company called Cavnue and served as CTO. She still focused on car driving safety.
At the same time, former Apple engineering manager Dave Scott resigned. Previously, he ran Apple's robotics team. After leaving his job, Scott returned to his roots and joined a healthcare company.
Although he has only been at Apple for 1 year and 9 months, he is also a member of the core car-building team.
Apple hopes to build an electric car with self-driving capabilities, and self-driving testing is also essential.
Since Apple obtained self-driving test qualifications in California in 2017, it has launched several self-driving test vehicles. Apple's self-driving test vehicles were modified from Lexus RX450s. There were only 3 vehicles at the beginning, with a maximum number of 72 vehicles, and currently there are 69 vehicles.
Apple’s self-driving test vehicle
Especially since this year, the number of safety officers in Apple’s self-driving vehicles has gradually increased. In May this year, there were only 72 safety officers. In July this year, At the end of the month, the number of safety officers increased to 92.
However, compared with October 2020, the number of Apple’s self-driving safety officers has dropped significantly. At that time, Apple had 154 security officers.
At the same time, the ratio of Apple’s self-driving safety personnel to vehicles is quite different from that of most self-driving companies.
For example, among the self-driving companies testing in California, the number of safety officers is mostly more than twice the number of self-driving cars. This ensures that safety officers are on duty in rotation and the vehicles can operate around the clock.
The number of Apple safety officers is only 1.33 times the number of vehicles. It is difficult for Apple to provide all vehicles 24/7.
According to data released by the California DMV, Apple’s autonomous driving testing is increasing year by year. In 2019, Apple’s test mileage was 7,544 miles. In 2020, Apple’s total testing mileage reached 18,000 miles (approximately 30,000 kilometers).
Due to the small number of vehicles, Apple’s autonomous driving test mileage is not impressive. This year, Waymo, the self-driving company spun off from Google, already has more than 600 test vehicles and more than 1,200 safety officers. In comparison, Apple is still far behind.
In addition to its efforts in partners, talents and software, Apple is also making efforts at the technical level. It has obtained 25 automobile-related patents this year, most of which are related to automobile intelligence, and a few One is related to vehicle manufacturing.
1. The vehicle can be controlled to change lanes with gestures, voice or even eyes
A patent titled "Autonomous Driving Car Based on Gesture Control" obtained by Apple in February this year shows that, Autonomous vehicles can control lane changes based on the driver's commands from across the air. This function is suitable for L2 and L3 autonomous driving. If the driver wants to actively control the vehicle, he can control the vehicle to change lanes through gestures, voice, or even eyes.
The driver can use gestures to control the vehicle to change lanes
In the car, there is a DMS camera specially used to recognize the driver's gestures. When there is a fork in the road, lane change information can appear on the vehicle's HUD. At this time, the driver does not need to turn on the lights to change lanes. He only needs to extend a finger and wave in the air to complete the lane change action.
At the same time, in order to prevent misoperations, Apple will set up a gesture control area. Only hands placed within a specific area can be correctly recognized.
Two situations of merging into the main road
Apple also obtained a patent called "System and Method for Avoiding Vehicles in Ramp Areas". Simply put, it is how vehicles can escape from the ramp area. Join the main road. When on the highway, it is often the case that you merge from the ramp onto the main road. Before a vehicle merges into the main road, it first determines whether there is a car coming from the side and calculates the speed and time. If a collision is possible, the vehicle will actively give way or stop to ensure safe passage.
2. 3D object detection is more accurate than point cloud
In February of this year, it was reported that Apple was looking for lidar suppliers to prepare for mass production of self-driving cars. A number of patents recently obtained by Apple show that lidar plays a very important role.
One of the patents is called "Voxel Feature Learning Network", which uses a 3D voxel feature learning/detection network to capture subtle 3D shape information to achieve object recognition.
3D voxel feature learning/detection process
Compared with the previous point cloud object detection network, the detection accuracy of the 3D voxel feature learning/detection network can be improved from the previous 88 to 89.2, and the average direction error can be reduced from the previous 2.5 degrees to 0.82 degrees.
This detection method can be used to detect various objects such as vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists traveling on the road.
3. Acquired three NFC car key patents
Last year at WWDC, Apple launched the digital car key (CarKey) function. By binding the car key to the iPhone, the car owner can unlock the car door with the mobile phone. This year, Apple’s ultra-wideband U1 chip will be used to unlock car doors even if the phone is placed in the bag.
This year, Apple has received several patents related to digital car keys.
Among them, in a patent called "Mobile Car Key Registration and Use", the binding of NFC car keys will be more convenient. Currently, if you want to bind a car key to your iPhone, you need to download the car manufacturer's App, and you need to go through more cumbersome steps in the App. In this patent, if the car key is brought close to the iPhone, a pop-up window will appear on the phone to prompt the user to bind the car key.
Car key pop-up prompt
The connection between the physical car key and the mobile phone is as simple as connecting a Bluetooth headset.
Apple pointed out that this simple connection method is firstly convenient for users, and secondly, it is more environmentally friendly.
In another patent for a keyless entry system, Apple uses some security settings to prevent the misuse of digital car keys and ensure vehicle safety. These include restricting radio transmissions, prohibiting adjustments to transmit waveforms, prohibiting adjustments to radio frequencies, etc.
In the first half of this year, Tesla, a new car-making force, sold 380,000 units. Smart electric cars and autonomous driving are becoming more and more popular among consumers.
At the same time, people expect this company with a market capitalization of over US$2.4 trillion (approximately 15.55 trillion yuan) and nearly US$200 billion in cash (approximately 1.29 trillion yuan) to also Can launch an electric car that can "change the world".
On January 9, 2007, Jobs released the first-generation iPhone
Perhaps one day, Apple CEO Cook can say "Apple Reinvents the Car" like Jobs did 13 years ago. .