Today, Tesla's market value is ten times that of the original, which is roughly equivalent to Apple's level three years ago. Moreover, no one knows whether the market value of Tesla will surpass that of Apple in three years.
Perhaps, Cook's thighs are red with anger!
However, Apple is not sitting still. 65438+On February 22nd, Reuters quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that Apple is promoting the technology of self-driving cars and plans to produce a passenger car in 2024, which may include the breakthrough battery technology developed by the company itself.
Affected by this news, Tesla once fell 5% in intraday trading, while Apple rose nearly 5% in intraday trading. This rise and fall is enough to prove the market's concern that Apple cars may have a major impact on Tesla. Even, some netizens ridiculed that:
Apple currently has a price-earnings ratio of only 40 times, but now it is an electric vehicle company with a valuation of 400 times, with at least 10 times the growth space.
With this topic, let's talk about Apple making cars today.
Apple's plan to build a car
It started with Steve Jobs' dream of building a car.
From 20 14, you can hear the news of Apple making cars almost every once in a while.
In fact, Apple's plan to build a car first started with Jobs.
On June 9, 2007, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, launched what he called "revolutionary mobile phone" at the Moscone Convention and Exhibition Center in San Francisco, which is an electronic product that integrates the functions of iPod, mobile phone and Internet communication equipment. As Jobs hoped, the iPhone "completely changed the telecommunications industry".
At the same time, the company name was changed from "Apple Computer" to "Apple Inc", which marked Apple's formal transformation from a computer manufacturer to a consumer electronics company.
This also laid the groundwork for Apple's layout of the car project.
In 2008, with the great success of iPhone, Jobs turned his attention to cars, and even talked about the possibility of making cars with Tony Failde, a former Apple executive known as the father of iPod. Unfortunately, the sudden financial crisis has made the entire automobile industry very sad, and Apple's car-making plan can only be put on hold for the time being.
Time flies to 20 14.
This year, Apple quietly launched the smart electric vehicle program and named its project "Titan". In Apple's own words, it aims to create a product that can "subvert and replace Detroit". Subsequently, Apple appointed a vice president who had worked as an engineer in Ford to lead the project, and frantically recruited people from companies including Tesla, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and Google. At the end of 20 15, Apple CEO Cook said in an interview: "The automobile industry will undergo tremendous changes, and the poor technical performance of traditional automobile manufacturers has left huge opportunities for companies such as Apple."
As a result, the curtain of Apple's car was opened.
However, due to the internal dispute between the "vehicle" and the "system", the project leader finally resigned on 20 16, which caused a serious setback to the Apple car project. Later, although Apple said that it would focus on autonomous driving technology, the relevant progress was still quite slow.
Fortunately, in the past few years, Apple has applied for more than 100 patents related to smart cars, involving autonomous driving, intelligent cockpit, intelligent body and so on.
Because of this, when Reuters reported that Apple would produce a passenger car in 2024, and emphasized that it was promoting autonomous driving technology and breakthrough battery technology, the market response would be so great. Moreover, according to related reports, Apple's first electric car, the Apple Car prototype, has been tested on the road in California and will be released in September 20021year. In addition, auto parts companies such as Heda, FTU, Heqing and Futian have recently received inventory demand, and are preparing to increase the demand for auto parts as early as the second quarter of next year.
In other words, after shouting "Wolf is coming" for several years, the Apple Car finally arrived.
Four major innovations
Technology authorization of the world's largest technology company
As mentioned earlier, Apple is promoting the research and development of self-driving cars, which may include its own breakthrough battery technology.
Next, I will focus on Apple's innovative technology.
First, autonomous driving technology.
Apple's layout in autonomous driving can be said to be simple and rude, and it is the top talent accumulation in the world. For example, the senior director of autonomous driving was previously the head of Waymo system integration under Google; For example, the director of self-driving machine learning, formerly a senior research scientist at Google Brain, belongs to the world's top AI talents; For another example, the autopilot hardware director was previously the head of Waymo vehicle hardware engineering and the head of Tesla hardware engineering.
It is precisely because of this that the actual effect of Apple's autonomous driving technology is worth looking forward to.
In addition, since autopilot is mentioned, it is an unavoidable chip.
On February 9, 65438, according to media reports, Apple is seeking cooperation with TSMC to build customized autopilot chips for Apple cars. The main reason for choosing TSMC is that the two sides have established a good cooperative relationship before. It is worth mentioning that Tesla's car chip HW4.0 is also packaged by TSMC, which is equivalent to Apple borrowing Tesla's supply chain.
It also means that Apple's autopilot technology may directly support L4 autopilot!
Second, break through battery technology.
With the delivery of new energy vehicles reaching a new high, the demand for lithium ferrous phosphate has also increased rapidly, resulting in an inflection point in the price of lithium ferrous phosphate after two consecutive years of decline. Now, Apple also plans to use lithium ferrous phosphate as the cathode material of the battery. Through the unique "single battery" battery design, the volume of a single battery in the battery is increased, and by reducing the number of battery modules and protecting the shell, more internal space of the battery pack is released to fill more active substances, thus improving the cruising range of the battery pack with the same volume.
If it is as Apple claims, the safer and longer-lasting power battery will undoubtedly become a new attraction.
Third, the intelligent cockpit.
Compared with autonomous driving and power battery technology, the intelligent cockpit gives consumers a more intuitive feeling, and it is also the most effective means to redefine the car and differentiate it from other peer products.
Take the popular patent technology of AR-HUD as an example.
AR is also called "augmented reality". AR-HUD uses the imaging technology of AR to cover the digital images we see in the real world and integrate the information projected by HUD with the real driving environment. Simply put, it is to turn the front windshield into a big screen, and provide street signs, navigation information, lanes, speed, fuel consumption and other information on the windshield to achieve an accurate, efficient and safe driving experience.
In short, it is both practical and sci-fi!
Another example is the patented technology of the occupant safety system.
In Apple's design, all the seats in the car can rotate 180 degrees, either in rows like traditional seats or face to face like commercial vehicles. In addition, in order to be safer, Apple added a soft partition between the passenger and the window to reduce the damage of the passenger during the collision, which can protect both the front passenger and the rear passenger.
Fourth, the operating system.
For Apple, not only the hardware products should be excellent enough, but also the software products should be amazing enough.
On the one hand, the core ecology of Apple iphone can be seamlessly transplanted to electric vehicles; On the other hand, all personal iphone accounts are connected with Apple Auto, which makes the "four-wheeled mobile phone" more digital. Even Apple's operating system may support multimodal interaction, bringing a new interactive experience.
If this is the case, then it may not be Tesla but Apple that really defines the next generation of cars. Because Tesla pursues the popularization of new energy vehicles, its status is more like "Ford in the era of new energy vehicles", and Apple is expected to truly open the era of "smart+internet vehicles".
Race against time
Why did Apple gamble on the car track?
Although Apple is expected to truly open the next era, its competitors will not sit still.
65438+February 2 1, in an interview, Musk said:
In other words, in 202 1 year, Tesla will be able to launch L5 autonomous driving technology!
From this, we can also spy out why Apple also wants to bet on the car track.
First of all, at the policy level, new energy vehicles have ushered in historical opportunities.
In Europe, not only the strict carbon emission bill has been passed, but also the withdrawal time of traditional fuel vehicles has been clarified, forcing traditional car companies to accelerate the transformation to new energy vehicles; In China, according to the Development Plan of New Energy Vehicles in 2035 recently issued by the State Council, it is clearly stated that the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China will reach 20% in 2025, and pure electric vehicles will become the mainstream in 2035. Needless to say, the United States, as the base camp of Tesla, even Japan, which has always been conservative, plans to ban the sale of fuel vehicles in 2035.
Therefore, new energy vehicles will replace traditional fuel vehicles, and there will be a huge market increase!
Second, the smartphone has encountered a bottleneck, and Apple needs to find a "growth point" with huge market capacity.
In 20 19, the total global automobile sales volume was 90.32 million, which was still at a historical high despite the decline for two consecutive years. Among them, the sales volume in China market is 26 million vehicles, accounting for about 30%.
From this calculation, whether in China market or global market, the sales scale of new car sales market alone is trillions. Obviously, this is another market with huge imagination space after computers and mobile phones, and it is also the growth point that Apple urgently needs to find.
Third, Apple itself has both money and technology, and has leading research and development capabilities. And there are many connections between software and smart phones.
As mentioned earlier, although Apple has not launched Apple car, it has accumulated more than 65,438+000 patented technologies related to smart cars in the past few years. This proves the strong strength of the world's largest technology company in research and development. Because of this, in the face of such a company that wants money, money and important people, even the traditional automobile industry that boasts a deep moat is afraid of three points.
What's more, in the core products such as product design, chips and even operating systems, there is interoperability in both the concept and the product itself.
Fourth, the industrial chain has been opened and matured.
Different from the situation faced by Tesla, after more than ten years of development, the global supply chain has been opened and matured. It is precisely because of this that the news that companies such as Daiwa, FTU, Lehe and Futian purchased products from Apple came out, and the market was not surprised, because these companies are all enterprises under the Tesla supply chain system.
In fact, it is precisely because the global industrial chain is becoming more and more mature that real estate companies like Evergrande can rely on "buy-in-buy" all over the world to set up new energy automobile companies and shout out that they will become the first brand in the field of new energy vehicles in the world within 3-5 years.
Let's sum up Apple's car-making in one sentence:
The right time, the right place and the right people!
What is the right time? Major countries in the world are vigorously developing the new energy automobile industry, and have made a lot of investment and subsidies; Where is the right place? The global new energy industry chain has been opened, and breakthroughs have been made in related core technologies; What is human harmony? In terms of investment in new energy vehicle projects, Apple needs money to give people money and concentrate all resources to promote its development.
So, are you optimistic about Apple making cars?