The Apple Car (aka "Project Titan")

The idea to manufacture an Apple car predates the iPhone — and yet, more than a decade (and several generations of iPhone models) later, we’re still waiting to see an Apple-built car. Will it ever become a reality?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the Wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from how Stuff works dot Com. Welcome back
to the show. I'm Ben and I'm Scott and we
are joined as always by our super producer, Noel Brown
in spirit. Actually today we have our producer also super

(00:24):
Tyler iOS playing Tyler big Brother playing Boy, Tyler Titan,
Tyler Titan playing Oh yes, that's it, home Run. Scott,
be a little bit alliterative, you know, let's to say,
it's tough. It's tough to say Tyler the type I
might be a little bit alliterative. Will be very deliberate

(00:46):
about that deliberative. But don't don't mess me up. Now.
I'm on a roll al right, Well, while you're While
you're rolling, while we still got a hot take going
on here, I wanted to ask you by way of
um set up or segue into today's episode, Scott, have
you ever owned an iPhone? No? I have not. I'm

(01:07):
I'm an android guy. You are, and I've always been
an Android. Yeah exactly. And my daughter has an an iPhone.
UM loves it, you know, enjoys it. But uh, and
I just have never really had any kind of experience
at all with one. Yeah, I myself used to have
an iPhone a while back, and I made a switch
to Android's uh, and I haven't looked back. I don't

(01:30):
have any real, you know, fundamental big criticism of the iPhone.
It's just the Android tended to work better for my purposes,
you know, got it. I was a little bit outside
of Apple's famous sandbox and Apples sandbox. While we're referring

(01:50):
to which ladies and gentlemen, a lot of you have
probably heard that phrase before. Uh. Sandbox in the world
of tech refers to this idea that, let's say, the
user of a certain company's technology or software, like an
Apple user, would live entirely in Apple's ecosystems. So You've

(02:12):
got your iPhone, and that means it also sinks up
to you know, the MacBook you own, or your iPod
or whatever iPad iPad, yes, and that you use services
like iTunes to get your music, or Apple's TV service
to watch television and film. And for many people this

(02:34):
works really well because they're able to say, well, the
all the possible things that could happen are both knowable
and fixable and tested to some degree. And so Apple,
as we know, is a Leviathan in the world of technology, right. Uh,

(02:56):
they've made so so much money off of the iPhone
in particular, but also off of desktops, off of laptops,
and off of tablets, and and you know, the iPod
changed the music industry the same way that the Sony
Walkman changed the music industry. So the big question on

(03:20):
a lot of people's minds back uh, in the time
of Steve Jobs and his glory days is the strong
man of Apple was what are they going to think
of next? What are they going to build next? Because
they have such a large amount of capital that they
can throw money at all and say almost anything, you

(03:41):
know what I mean. They have enough money that if
they wish, they could start participating in the private side
of the space race, which spoiler alert, we don't. It's
not what this show is about. Well that's good news,
all right. Well, yeah, there's a possibility that they could
get involved with with automobiles, right And in fact they did,
but it was a short lived effort from nineteen fifteen
to nineteen seventeen when they were the Apple Car Company.

(04:03):
Oh wait did we Oh yes, did I study the
wrong car? Ben's looking at me like I'm crazy you
from a different time, you know, I was. I was
waiting for a moment to tee that up. But I
didn't get us. I didn't get as far into it
as I thought before. You wanted to stop me, so
I figured we'll just stop there. But yes, there was
an Apple car company from nineteen fifteen and nineteen seventeen,

(04:25):
and it was the Apple Model eight. And there was
a fire that ended that whole thing. But anyways, I
was trying to be funny, felt very fat because Ben
thought I was serious. But um, you know, that's fine,
that's fine, But I kind of expected, you know, some
of that. But um, yeah, they're they're gonna get into
automobile manufacturerer. So we thought that was kind of the

(04:45):
rumor from about what two thousand ten on that they
were going to build an Apple car. They were gonna
actually build their own piece of hardware that would then
use all of their software inside and it would be
like this connected vehicle, right, this electric car, or they
surmised that it would be electric. It wasn't really stated ever,
you know, what the power train would be, but it
was guessed that it was going to be electric. Um,

(05:07):
and of course it would run all of Apples operating,
you know, the the the iOS would be all Apple
of course. Um and uh and well, we've had some
news recently there's uh, I don't know how far into
this you want to get right now, but there's been
some real recent updates to this. M But but way
back in two thousand eight is when Steve Jobs first
went to I'm an outside company and I have it

(05:29):
somewhere here. I will have to look it up. I'm
caught flat footed without it. But he went somewhere manufacturer
the v vehicle, right, yes, that's right, and had suggested
that he wanted to get into uh looking at making
a lightweight vehicle that was far more efficient than what's
already out there. And that was the general idea, you know,
it wasn't really didn't go too much farther than that, because, uh,

(05:51):
not long after that, Steve Jobs decided to shift his
focus to strictly the iPhone. He wanted to really develop
that and make that work well, instead of trying to
split his efforts between iPhone, you know, development and this
enormous project of building a car. Oh yeah, and it's
an enormous project. It's difficult to it's difficult to really

(06:12):
emphasize how uh, how complicated building a car quote unquote
from scratch is. And we know that you may have
heard in past episodes listeners when Scott and I discussed this.
We know that there are numerous examples of even state
sponsored initiatives failing. And by state sponsored we mean not

(06:35):
just you know, Henry Ford or the Dodge brothers working
on something in their garages. We mean a government of
a country throwing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions
of dollars into creating their own car industry, only to
ultimately end up taking a bath on it and going
back and buying from foreign manufacturers. It's a really, really

(06:57):
difficult game to break into. And that's why you when
we talk about Tesla, I mean, what they've done really
is remarkable when you consider what they came form, like
how they how they built themselves up so quickly, and
how how much of a household name they've become, and
what they've done with this, and they're able to produce
vehicles that are on the street, which we don't see
that from these other startups, like you know, think about

(07:17):
companies like Elio Motors. They're trying to do something pretty
darn So, I mean, I'll say pretty darn simple. It's
not simple at all, But the car itself is simple.
It's got it uses a lot of existing components put
together to make this really simple, simple vehicle that is
supposed to be really, really great. And we've talked about
this and other episodes and why it's not working. It's

(07:38):
it all comes down to money at this point. Um.
But um, that just goes to show you that's one
case example of how hard this could be. And there's
many many. I mean, there's thousands of these. But if
you go back in the last hundred years, for every Tesla,
there twenty ilios. Yeah, probably I would say more. Actually,
well okay, and there's there's even another one that we're
gonna bring up today that let's let'll just mention Faraday Future. Yeah,

(08:01):
we'll talk about that one a little bit as we
get Okay. So the this may be a stunning fact
for a lot of people, and it surprised me in
the course of our investigation here, uh, that Apple really
was planning on building a car before they built the iPhone.
Just like Scott said, I had no idea. I thought

(08:22):
the decision already came about as a well, we've built
the iPhone and we have all of the money, so
let's see what's happening with these cars. But so, as
Scott said, uh, Steve Jobs considered developing an Apple car
and he met with the guy who manufactured this thing
called the V vehicle. Let's talk a little bit about

(08:44):
the V vehicle. Uh. It was created by an industrial
designer named Brian Thompson, and after they had kicked around
some ideas, they actually met in to discuss what Thompson
wanted to do with his car. And it was also
Steve Jobs sort of personal fact finding mission about manufacturing costs,

(09:07):
about plastics and stuff, because Thompson wanted the V vehicle
to be lightweight, petroleum powered, built with cheaper materials, and
sold for fourteen thousand, which is a very very low
price for a four seater. Oh, extremely low. Yeah, And uh, well,
especially here in this market, because if you're not trying
to sell a car here in the United States, there

(09:27):
are certain federal mandates that have to be in place,
and that that's a lot of like, well, you know what,
come to think of it. Now, going back to two
thousand and eight, there were far fewer of these. I mean,
there are a lot more now, but still fourteen thousand,
even then that was still a that was a bargain.
That's really Yeah, bargain is a nice way to say,
I'm very skeptical of that price point. Well, yeah, that's
you know, we we hear that all the time. They'll

(09:50):
start out with fourteen thousand, then that becomes sixteen thousand,
then eighteen, and then pretty soon it's four thousand, and
it just goes up and up and up from there,
and it finally hits the market around third two or
thirty four. Yeah, and that's with the company that builds
cars that it actually builds cars. So the materials that
they used in this vehicle, we're gonna be uh, we're

(10:11):
gonna make it lighter than a normal steel made vehicle.
And according to the calculations, and this comes from mac rumors,
it would cost se less to manufacture. And of course,
once you put on the famous Apple tax, which is
just the premium people pay for any Apple product. I

(10:31):
like apple Jack's, Yeah, apple jack they're good, which just milk.
They it makes the milk taste really good. At the end,
you know what it's done. It has kind of a fruity. Wait,
did I have a trouble with my hearing today? Did
you say apple Jack's? Yeah, but apple Jack's were the
same company that originally started the Apple car. I'll knock
off the corny Jill's, okay, because it's just not working.

(10:53):
It's really not. You're too kind laughing. I'm honestly, honestly,
I've laughing because you'll drop, you'll drop the joke of
to be disappointed in yourself. I know later when I'm
listening to this, I'm gonna consider editing, editing this out.
But we'll see if it makes it. How about that,
We'll see if it makes it still and keep it in.

(11:14):
Our editor Dylan is gonna do me a solid and
keep those in. And you two ladies and gentlemen. So,
as Scott said, despite these meetings, they eventually they eventually
decided to focus entirely on the iPhone, but the dream
of the Apple car never fully left the company's conscious. No, no, no, no,
they wanted to do it, and they kept this this

(11:34):
dream alive. And they started even recruiting, uh, individuals from
different car companies. Right, so, uh, they pulled a lot
of people that came from Tesla over into this program.
And when I say a lot, I mean they were Okay,
first of all, they were recording recruiting people from UH
different automobile manufacturers as well. People are coming from Ford, Mercedes,
They're They're coming from all over the place, right. I'm

(11:55):
trying to think of the laundry listed names that I saw,
you like, where the recruitment came from. But um, they
were at and I think at one point I heard
that they had six hundred employees working on this program,
this program already and the goal was one thousand. Yeah,
the the green light they had from UH, the CEO
was to get one employees. Okay, so this is kind

(12:15):
of funny, right because this is uh, this is a
program that they're calling kind of like a secret program, right,
like it's a secret car and they refer to the
secret Car program throughout all these articles that we've read,
you know, the research. But everybody in the industry knows
what's going on, Like Elon Musk, he knows what's going on,
of course, because you know, he's been track and forth
what they call it poaching war with with with Apple

(12:38):
because um, Apple is taking his employees, you know, his
ex engineers and then using them, and then he's also
kind of taking employees from them, and and you know
it's working both ways, I guess. So that you know,
it's like they called a poaching war. And it's also
what he calls like the biggest open secret in the
automo automobile industry. You know that, Uh yeah, Apple's got
this secret program. But we all know exactly what's going on.

(13:00):
And I think a lot of people are in that
same position. It's not just him, A lot of people
know what they're up to. I mean, clearly we're reading
we're reading about it today. They're they're articles all over
the place in places like mac Rumors and Bloomberg and
you know, Wall Street Journal, Yeah, and okay, all the
other auto blogs to Gelopnik and you know any anywhere
else automobiles, auto trading. Yeah, they've all got articles about

(13:21):
the Apple car. So again, it's like the worst kept
secret car program ever. Because well, when you amass you know,
a thousand engineers to work on something, you know that
they're up to something. People talk. Yeah, So here's another
example of how much of an open secret this is.
Oh and let me correct myself, I said, Auto Trader
what it meant to say was car and driver. So

(13:42):
here's here's something that happened. And back in what would
it be February, people started spotting what they called a
mysterious van with a strange quoting here strange apparatus on
its roof. The car, it turns out, was least to Apple,

(14:03):
it's a Dodge. It was a Dodge caravan. And so
the big guest here was is Apple testing out some
sort of mapping technology similar to Google street View or
Google Maps? Or are they doing something different and much
more ambitious? Are they attempting to build a self driving car? Yeah,

(14:28):
because what we're what the people are seeing in the
I guess the is San Francisco, Barria, right. Uh, they were,
they were seeing these, you know, like, well, I think
the one in the photo here is a Dodge minivan,
but it's a minivan where the entire roof rack is
covered with sensors of some kind, and they you know,
of course it's going to draw attention. Um, you know,
I suppose in that area there are a lot of
other test vehicles run around there with I'm sure Uber

(14:49):
with their self driving vehicles were probably working at on
tests at this time. Um, there's also of course Google
as you mentioned. As you mentioned, and then there's other
sites that you know, just do surveying and things like
that that also have you know, vehicles kind of like this.
But this one stood out. It was something new and
they again all you have to do is trace the
license plate and registration back to Apple, and you know

(15:11):
kind of well, they're they're up to something. And plus
that feeds into all the rumors that have been going
on for the previous five years. Yeah, and also people
did confirm that there were drivers in the vans, but
that doesn't necessarily mean anything. One of the arguments you
would hear against the concept of Apple having an autonomous
vehicle program was that there are six companies at the

(15:34):
time that were licensed to build and test autonomous vehicles. Yeah,
so they had to have a driver in the seat though.
That's the that's part of the rule. And I think
even even to this day too, I mean, to date
when this podcast releases, they're supposed to have a driver
in them. It's not a fully autonomous system yet even
uh maybe this will date our podcast. But last Friday,

(15:56):
there was some some kind of a scuffle with a
scuff up I guess maybe with um Uber in their
autonomous systems. They were supposed to release fully autonomous um
Uber vehicles in San Francisco, and as part of the
you know, kind of get around the rules, I guess, uh,
they had to have somebody in in the car that
could also jump in and take control if they wanted to.

(16:16):
But they're not driving really and there was a problem.
They ran a red light almost immediately that same day.
They were caught on a dash cam and uh. Then
they as they go back to say like, well, now
we're not going to allow them to do it. They
found out that Uber never really pulled the permits to
do that, so they were in the wrong from the
beginning to do that. So they're a little bit of trouble.
And I would guess that you know, early on and

(16:38):
you know, this is what a couple of years ago,
um at least two years ago. Right at this point,
um if if they were in fact testing an autonomous vehicle,
you know that they had to have a driver in place.
So it's kind of like you could see it and
not really understand fully what's going on, because if there
was a person in there and they are testing autonomous
you wouldn't really know that unless you were able to
have some kind of inside information or um, you know,

(17:01):
talk to somebody in the know there. Um you know,
maybe the driver themselves, but they're not going to cough
up that information for you exactly. Uh. And speaking of
coffee up information, we know about that stuff that poaching
war between Tesla and Apple because of an employee leak.
It was only days after the mysterious fan was first
spotted in February, so either February or March of of

(17:24):
that same year, that an unknown Apple employee contacted Business
Insider and told them about this project and then dischronaled employee.
Maybe yeah, perhaps yet or was it a plan leak?
That's the other thing is that sometimes they do that, right, Yeah,
I always think about that too, m or maybe it
was a former employee of another company who now worked

(17:47):
for Apple. Could be but I I would not be
surprised if it was controlled leak. But what happened then
was that people started digging around, so Financial Times finds
out about this uh so called top secret research lab
and how they were hiring former Mercedes Benz researchers. Uh

(18:10):
like um oh, the R and D exact Johan young Worth.
And then they also thought, well, maybe Apple is just
building a software platform, right like Google doesn't build the
majority of Android phones. Google provides the software. Yeah sure,

(18:32):
I mean, but then I guess maybe if you look
at the group as a whole, like who who they're employing,
I mean, and what they did because there were Volkswagen engineers,
they are Ford engineers, Bosh engineers, Delphi research scientists with
former expertise and autonomous vehicles. Um. You know, so that
some of that points to, of course what you're saying.
You know that it is software. But um, then you

(18:52):
get people that are you know, we're in charge of manufacturing,
and you know they have the smart they have they
can answer the questions I guess about how to build
a car, like how because you know, if you're jumping in,
you know, both feet on this thing, you don't really
know exactly, um, where to start. Even it's a very
difficult process to figure out how many know what suppliers
are gonna need, what type of um, what type of

(19:13):
facility you're gonna need, even what what type of plant
are you gonna need to build a car? I mean,
you can go look at the current manufacturing plants. But
then you've got to realize that they have suppliers outside
that bring in the raw materials or bringing the components
to be assembled there. It could just be an assembly plant. Um.
It's it's far more complex than um than just just
again just jumping in with both feet and saying I

(19:35):
think I'm gonna start my own car company this year.
You can't do that. It's it's like a decade long
build up process anymore. Now I'm over explaining this. It's
just it's it's it's very complex, and and I think
if they looked at the group of people that they gathered,
you know, the six hundred known employees or you know
whatever Earth thousand or whatever it was, Uh, they could
probably surmise exactly what's going on. Yeah, I think it's

(19:56):
just it's not like reading tea leaves. They're definite. Uh,
they're definite indications there. So then, just like just a
few hours after this speculation began, the Wall Street Journal
drops a bomb on the community and says, no, they're
not building a software platform. Apple is creating an electric

(20:19):
vehicle and it's been working on this since. And the
Wall Street sources said that this electric vehicle looked kind
of like a minivan, and it was being built under
the code name Project Titan. Yeah, project Tighten, Tighten it up. Yeah,
they're tightening. Well, I gotta say it. Why not? You're

(20:41):
on fire today? Man, what's going on? Really? I think
we think we're funny. I think I think you're funny,
and you don't think you're funny. But the yeah, you're
absolutely correct. It was called Project Titan. Uh. This was
led by a guy named Steve Zadeski, Apple VP of
Product Design, and he was under Dan Ricio and they

(21:06):
have been given to go ahead by the CEO at
the time, Tim Cook, to recruit upwards of a thousand
employees both inside and outside of Apple as it existed,
And they started meeting with these different manufacturers to see
who could help them create the car if the project continued.

(21:26):
So they talked to some surprising surprising people. Uh. One
was a group called Magnus Stare uh, and then one
was BMW. Yeah. Yeah. So the idea was that maybe
they would use the BMW Electric I three body as
kind of the base for this Apple car. And um,

(21:47):
I guess the whole thing, you know that all the
talks I guess ended without a deal, and since the
I three is a small hatchback with a carbon fiber shell,
they were thinking that this is kind of the direction
that that that Apple wants to go with this vehicle.
They wanted to be, uh, you know, something small, lightweight, versatile,
I guess in that way. But you know I three,
that's a really small vehicle. It's a um it's a

(22:07):
city car. Yeah, exactly right. But again they didn't make
any deal with them at all, and in fact, they
tried with both Daimler and BMW. But again, uh, there
were questions over who would lead the company, in which
company would have ownership over the data, et cetera. There
were a lot of like logistic details that they couldn't
get hammered out. But then there was a very interesting
client that they talked to. Right, Oh man, this would

(22:27):
have been so cool even if it were disastrous. Apple
also started talking with McLaren. Yes, you guys, that McLaren.
That would have been interesting, wouldn't it. Know what would
have happened? Do you think they would have developed a
an all new platform again like a like a small
hatchback car like they were looking for. I mean, how

(22:48):
interesting would that be to be able to to pair
McLaren and Apple for a an all new vehicle that maybe, uh,
you know, McLaren, since they're involved, I don't know. I
would say affordable. But again, if it's a carbon fiber
body McLaren's involved, it's going to be lightweight. Of course,
that was what they're searching for. McLaren is like, well,
I mean, Lotus, McLaren, those guys, they're they're pretty much

(23:11):
kings at making lightweight vehicles, Lotus especially, but not affordable ones.
That's the problem is what would the price of that
thing be? So maybe it's better off that the but well,
you know what. Here's the other thing about McLaren. We
we have talked about McLaren um in the past, and
there their rapid development and how many new ideas they test,
and it was something crazy, wasn't I I don't have

(23:32):
it on the tip of my tongue right now. It
was like a new idea every hour and a half
or something ridiculous like that. And and these could range
from very specific things such as small improvements to one
aspect of a power train too much bigger things like
you know, carbon fiber was one of those every hour

(23:53):
and a half ideas, or you could just say, like
if you if you're low on ideas for that moment,
you could just say like, well, let's just drill some
speed holes in that thing and see what happens. Yes,
speed holes, speed hooles. Yeah, it's some one's like good speedholes.
Love it. That's lunch people. So the reason that these
talks failed, at least the Diameler and bing W, I

(24:14):
think we should go back and look at this against Scott,
because you did mention it. Reputedly it was caused over
disagreements about who would control the data. And cars produce
a whole lot of information. I almost used a different word,
but we're a family show, I understand. Yeah, they produced
a lot, they produced a lot of information location data, uh,

(24:38):
driving time like your time of day, your duration of
a drive, and then what you listen to and especially
in Apple's case, uh, what sort of advertising you respond
to as well, because you know, let's think of let's
admit it, like we're getting closer and closer to a world. Uh.
It might not be super common. You and I are

(25:01):
live Scott, but for anybody who has kids right now,
your kids are probably going to see a car that
is at least partially based on ad revenue. Yeah, Now,
isn't this crazy where we're talking about something like that.
They're they're they're arguing over things like that, who owns
this data? And we're talking about a lot of data again,
stuff that would be stored to the cloud of course, Um,

(25:22):
but it's causing negotiation difficulties in a car deal here
in two thousand fifts. So strange when you think about
how far sighted that is. It is they they haven't
gotten over the hurdle yet of figuring out what the
like what their vehicle is going to be like. Now again,
I guess maybe in the case of BMW and dime
Lader that they probably already had. Well, of course they
have the I three in place, so it would be

(25:44):
it would be using that as their platform. But if
they were trying, if they're really trying to develop their
own vehicle, their own like a brand new, all new vehicle,
why are they arguing over who owns the data at
this point? I mean maybe later sure that has a place,
of course, but that shouldn't cause the whole negotiation of
fall apart us early on. It's like, it seems crazy,

(26:05):
like it's like starting a starting a band and quitting
the same day because you guys can't agree on percentages
from T shirt sands or the you know, the platinum record.
Who's gonna keep the platinum record at their house? Right?
Who does this speech at the Grammys? You guys, screw this.
I'm leaving the garage. Find another Maremba prodigy. So, uh,

(26:28):
speaking of going places, we are going to tell you
a little bit more about why that argument was so important,
along with the evolution of the Apple car. After a
quick word from our sponsor and we're back in Ben,

(26:49):
you said you had something to tell us right after
the break. Okay, it's because of that sand box mentality.
I'll say it. I'm sure even our resident tech expert,
John Nathan Strickland over Tech stuff will agree with me
on this because data is such a big, big business

(27:09):
and the collection of that of that data for Apple's side,
does a lot more than just inform them thoroughly about
their drivers. It also gives them the opportunity to learn
about cities because these are city cars. It becomes incredibly valuable.
I mean, that's what it does. It's a it's a

(27:30):
really valuable resource for them and it's something that they're
just gathering all the time. We're creating that for them, right.
And Apple is notoriously controlling, and most car companies are
also notoriously controlling, So of course they're going to run
into situations where they're at locker heads because Apple is

(27:52):
going to say. Apple is going to come in, um,
maybe in some ways the way that Walmart comes in
two suppliers and its supply chain and says okay, we
will pay X. And then they say in the supplier.
In this case, the car manufacturers like, well, that's not
the way we do things. Let's have a conversation, and

(28:13):
they say, okay, our conversation is that we will pay X.
That's it right, Good day to you, sir. However, we
do want eight hundred truckloads of X at X price. Yes, yeah,
that's a better way to say it, I guess. And
then they raised their eye. I was like, wait a minute,
this could be uh, that's our manufacturing for the full year.
So okay, we'll take that deal. Right, And so this

(28:34):
this is not like, guys, I'm not in any way
saying that Apple is wrong for this, that car manufacturers
are wrong for it. That's just how this sort of
business works and apples in that position where if they're
playing a very dangerous game, a very high risk game,
like building a car line, that they have to go

(28:56):
in knowing exactly what they want, an exact actually, and
they have to find a partner that will satisfy that
stuff to the t. There can't be any gray area,
because a gray area is what sinks the ship. It
sounds like they're trying. They're trying at this point. They're
trying to do the right thing right there, trying to
to narrow that down, like do we want to build

(29:17):
our own product or do we want to use an
existing line of product line? Like do we want to
use that I three or would we rather have our
own car right from the beginning. We can control everything
right from the start, But it's far more difficult to
do it that way. Problem And what would they call it?
Would it be the BMW I three by Apple or
you know what I mean? Yeah, you're right, I mean
it would be really strange. I mean, I guess there

(29:38):
would be enough changes that it would make it distinctive
in its own you know, its own thing. But would
it even be badged? Uh, you know, BMW or you know,
how would that how would that work? I mean again,
it's all questions that you know. Again they could even
come up with an answer at that point. And so
the project continued despite these these bumps along the road.
And I don't even think these were bumps, so much

(30:00):
fact finding missions maybe. And in January sixteen, Steve Zadeski,
who was in charge of this uh let began leaving
the company, announced his plans to leave, and a guy
named Bob Mansfield took over the electric vehicle development team UH.
He had interestingly enough, been retired from Apple since two

(30:20):
thousand twelve. And Zadeski's departure kind of led to a
pushback on the delivery date because they had kind of
have a date they were shooting for it. I was around,
and they had at that point they said, Okay, now
that Zadeski has gone, we're gonna shove that back to UH.
We need a little bit more time, a little bit
more time, you know, for this this transition period to
work out. But it sounds like they got the right

(30:41):
guy in the job, right, I mean, somebody coming back
that already had interest in the company. Yeah, and obviously
he's a loyal company man. Because even after retirement he
stayed on to advise on different projects. Yeah yeah. And
when Mansfield joined the project in twenty sixteen. In summer
of this year, he shifted the focus away from a

(31:02):
human driven electric car to an autonomous vehicle, which is
a completely different ball game. Oh yeah, definitely, they have
a completely different ball of wax. Right. So um, the
technology or the underlying technology required for this, uh, for
this would then take the forefront instead of you know,
trying to come up with the idea of a brand
new car, so um, you know, actually building an automobile

(31:24):
so um. At this point, the the information that came
out was that the work on the actual car had
kind of ceased to to to continue to grow while
they were working on more of the software into this thing,
like the technology how it would work if it was
an autonomous car, and speculation uh went wild as soon

(31:47):
as news also emerged that Apple had let go of
dozens of the employees that earlier hired to work on
this project. Now it looks like man Field has set
up he's reporting directly to the CEO at this time,
Tim Cook, Right. And again this is just middle of

(32:08):
this year, towards the end of this year even yeah, yeah,
and so here's how they're set up is working out.
The current speculation was the Apple was Originally people thought
Apple was pursuing a two pronged approach, so they were
still working on a car and the software to power it,
and Mansfield had organized three distinct teams, a software team,

(32:31):
a censor team, and a hardware engineering team. However, the
some of the latest reports show us that Apple shifted
fully toward autonomous vehicles and software that driving system, and
that hundreds of employees have either left or had their

(32:54):
had their job duties shifted to a different a different project,
or different department, and so at the moment, it looks
like Apple is not in fact moving forward with creating
a physical car, right. And the thing about this is

(33:16):
that a lot of people are bummed about the idea.
I'll admit, you know, I probably would. It would take
a lot for me to buy an Apple car. And
we can go into the pros and cons of this
later in the show, but just conceptually, I think it's
kind of a cool idea. It's an interesting idea. It's interesting.

(33:38):
I don't I still am not completely persuaded that it
would work for there to be you know, the Apple
I Drive or whatever they would end up calling it. Well,
that's probably what they would call it. Yeah, I Drive
is not bad. That's not bad. That's pretty good. It
was autonomous, it would be the I Ride. Yeah, I
like it. Yeah, that's you're probably right, You're probably exactly right.

(34:01):
But uh, well, they have the Apple Car Play system already, right,
and that's kind of like an integrated uh you know,
like an app system I guess for your car. Like
it runs everything, all the navigation and everything. So um,
and I'm supposed like you know where restaurants are in
town and all that stuff. I can't remember exactly what
all is included with the Apple car Play m app.

(34:21):
But um, again, it's one of those things that you
load in your vehicle and it just takes care of
everything for you. Um. I'll leave it at that. How
about that? Um, there are some people that you know,
said it never would happen, and I want to talk
about that later in the in the program as well. Um.
But here's here's this other thing that we need to
kind of mention here is that they also have a
bunch of like secret campuses all over the place, right,

(34:43):
and so so they've got like the headquarters, right, and
that's uh is that in Sunnydale? I think is the
name of the place, Sunnydale. Cupertina, Okay, it's Cupertina, and
um maybe one of them is somewhere anyways, there's some
secret locations, I guess, but they're not really secret. It's
just other places that are kind kind of you know,
set up with UM as headquarters I suppose, for different groups.

(35:04):
And one of those is supposed to be in sunny Vale.
And okay, sunny Vale, that's it. And if you if
you look for a company called sixty eight Research or
search the Google search, you know for sixty eight Research,
you'll find some information about the Apple car and all
the speculation about what they do with these different locations
all around California. And uh, and I don't know. I

(35:25):
just find it interesting that, you know, they think they're
operating under the radar sort of, but they're not really. Um.
The other thing, Ben, and here's where this the Faraday
Future comes back in here. A lot of people have
said that remember the Faraday Future car that we talked
about back in We talked about it early in twenty
I'm sorry, we had an entire episode on the Faraday

(35:47):
Future in this electric car that came out. It was
I think it was from There was an ex Tesla
employee involved in that as well, and a guy from China.
He was a tech tycoon is some kind. I don't
remember what he did. He was like it with television
or something. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, was it? Like that's
the guy, yeah, just off the that. You just remember that, right,
You didn't look it up for anything yet? Oh no,

(36:08):
of course not. Um But they said that, you know,
with Faraday Future building that billion dollar factory, and I
know that there's been some news about that recently too.
They were behind on payments or something. But people thought
that the Faraday Future thing, the whole thing was like
a shell company for the Apple car to take hold,
you know, without people really paying too much attention. But

(36:30):
I guess I don't buy that because there's a lot
of attention focused on that Faraday Future car. And if
if that was the case, they would do something that
would be a little bit more um um mundane. You know,
something that wouldn't draw quite as much attention. Is, well,
here's a Chinese electric car that's building a plant, a
billion dollar plant in the southwest somewhere, and uh, you

(36:51):
know it was in Las Vegas. I think maybe you're
somewhere near there or somewhere. I don't remember where. It was,
New Mexico or somewhere. Um, but they they drew a
lot of attend with that, and I would say that
if they're trying to cover for the Apple car that
was doing a terrible job of it, I don't buy
the shell company thing. Do you think that's the case
or do you think I'm not really? I mean, and

(37:11):
the money gets sticky at this point, because this is
a developing, rarefied field. So another interesting part is this,
uh is this little wrinkle Scott Uber recently announced merging
of its Chinese operations with this U with the operations

(37:32):
of this ride hailing service d d H took seeing
which I'm woefully mispronouncing and apologized to New Mandarin speakers.
But because Apple has a steak in that company, that
means that the lines are blurring. Uber and Apple are
a little more related. They're a bit closer than they

(37:54):
were a month ago exactly. And then and I think
I remember the interesting uh, I think I remember the
interesting detail about Project Titan that we have talked about
off air. What was that? It goes back to those
secret quote unquote secret buildings. Yeah, the locations all over California. Right,
they have these Greek mythological names right there, because there's

(38:18):
a Zeus and Athena, things like that. These are all
related to Titans. Right, They're all Titans. They're all Titans.
It's all be That's part of why people think they're
all part of Project Titan. And that's the tie in
again with the sixty eight research thing is that some
of them are branded as sixty eight Research. So anyways,
if you dig into this, you'll find some really interesting connections.

(38:40):
And of course people are constantly I mean all over
the place. There are articles about people trying to tie
together these little clues and trying to figure out what's
going on, what they're doing, because even though it's this
massive program, and like I guess the insiders like Elon
Musk and you know, other automobile manufacturers kind of know
what's going on. They know that what they're up to basically, well, sure,
but the thing is, no one knows all of the details,

(39:03):
no one really except the inside, the true insiders. So
it's it's pretty interesting to see what's happening. I wonder,
I wonder how much of this is truth? That you know,
they have shifted their focus away from building a car
into just going with the software and the package that
um would be inside the vehicle rather than you know,
the whole thing itself, like the whole package itself and
the hardware. UM. If they it would be quite a

(39:26):
shock to have them reveal maybe in the middle of
next year or in ten or nineteen or whenever. Hey,
by the way, we were developing a car and here
it is. It's ready. He is ready for the road.
But um, there's someone who argues against that. And maybe
we should take a look at this article in just
a moment after we take a word from our spots

(39:53):
and we are backed, ladies and gentlemen. I wanted to
ask you, Scott, could you give a the headline of
this because I love it so much? Oh sure, Yeah.
This is This is from the l A Times, and
it's very recent. It's from October eighteenth, sixteen, so late
this year. The title is farewell to the Apple Car,
A dream that was never going to happen. So that's

(40:14):
pretty strong headline, right. This is from me. This from
a colonists columnist. His name is, uh, from a colonist,
from a colonist. Now this is from a columnist columnist,
but I can't say it now columnist uh named Michael Hiltzik.
And again it's from October eighteenth of just this very year.
But um, in here he just basically declares that Apple

(40:35):
is getting out of the manufacturing business. As we said,
more precisely, according to Bloomberg, it appears that he was
that Apple is never really in the car manufacturing business.
And of course there's the the mention of the you know,
the thousand strong team that was was dubbed Project Titan,
which are now gone, that have been kind of redistributed
throughout the company, as you mentioned Ben earlier on. And uh,
then the idea that you know, they're still working on

(40:56):
building self driving programs, but stuff that can be sold
to existing car make years. So um, you know, like
an Apple add on, I guess is the idea right?
And that that sounds much more plausible. And the author
of this article does say, you know, I don't want
to say I told you so, but a lot of
other people who right in this field, a lot of

(41:17):
other journalists had already predicted this, as did heads of
industry because oh my gosh, what are my favorite quotes
in here? And well, do you want to read it?
Go ahead. This is from Dan Akerson, who was an
x CEO of GM, and he's outlining the challenge that
Apple faced and car making way back in February. So
what did he say, Ben, we take steel as steel

(41:40):
and turn it into a car. They have no idea
what they're getting into if they get into that. That's true.
It is absolutely that's exactly what we've been saying, and
that's what they faced. They've they've seen this for the
last six years now and you know, trying to ramp
up this program um. And that's why after six years
they decided, you know, maybe it's something that we're not
really capable ever, or again, are they hiding it? Maybe

(42:00):
they are capable of it. We'll see. Well that would
be one heck of a caper because this this point
that he makes, Uh, if we go and look at
it in a little more detail, So let's leet it
this way. With with phone technology or with tablet or
iPod technology. Apple outsources the manufacturing of the phone to

(42:21):
a contractor called fox Con which you've probably heard about,
and that doesn't fly with cars though. There is no
manufacturing contractor option that can operate on the scale needed
to create a commercially viable vehicle exactly right. Yeah, so

(42:41):
there's a really difficult thing here, and that's that's building
a car company from scratch. Um. And you're also overestimating
the potential market too. There's a there's something I want
to mention here about the market in just a minute.
But here's here's uh, and I will get to it,
I promised. But um, there's a couple of reasons why
the doubter is like this guy, this this Michael Hiltzik,

(43:02):
because he I think he's doubted it all along why
it would never happen. Um. But this is the reason
why they maybe why they may be right the doubters
um or at least the reasons why they can or
what they can point to to say why I'm doubting them.
So the standard comeback was, you know, well, you remember
the iPhone, the iPad. They quickly developed those, right, and
they came came kind of out of nowhere, right. Um,

(43:22):
a lot of those products did. They were brand new.
But here's the thing that a few problems with those
with those notions are that, um, there was like a
hyped environment that they were entering into. Apple was really
on top of their game when they announced this and
the announced that they were gonna, you know, come out
with this this car. They weren't. They weren't what he
calls a pr sweet spot. The company had just recorded
a blowout quarterly financial result driven by the financial success

(43:44):
of the iPhone six launch with new Apple Watched was
still lurking on the horizon, which oh you know what
happened there that that wasn't great? Um and uh and
then right after that, I mean, um, of course, you know, uh,
before he had and a drop because the watch was
kind of a what he calls it a relative yawn
and the company's stock loss something like thirty percent of

(44:05):
its value between February and mid May of this year.
Before it's somewhat kind of recovered from that slide. You know,
it's coming back a little bit. And the other thing
was that, um, the optimists under underestimated the challenge of
creating a car company from scratches We've said all along,
and the potential market. Now, this is what I was
gonna talk about here, is the potential market um. And
you mentioned, you know, building to this scale and being

(44:28):
able to outsource and all that. Right, Well, there's a
guy named Henry Blodgett, and he's of the Business Insider,
and he calculated that the entire worldwide automobile market of
about eighty eight million vehicles a year wasn't big enough
to generate more than a modest boost to Apple's annual
sales and profit. And can you believe that which stood
last year at two thirty four billion dollars and fifty

(44:51):
three billion dollars, respectively. So annual sales two it in
thirty four billion, annual profit last year was fifty three
billion dollars for Apple. So if you took all of
the eight eight million vehicles a year and then they
were all Apple vehicles, you still wouldn't even create what
he calls a modest boost to Apple's annual sales and profit. Right,

(45:12):
they would have to have an enormous market share, and
they would have to be making fifty profit on every
vehicle sold. A profit. Now, okay, here's the Here's the
problem with that is, as this guy points out, you
can achieve one or the other, but not both. So
you can achieve either, um, um, like with products like
niche products like like like Porsche or Ferrari or something

(45:33):
where they take they have like sizable margins, like you know,
a pretty decent profit on these things because they self
for huge dollar amounts. Or you can produce these mass
market vehicles with razors slim margins. But you can't do both.
I mean to do both. Um, you can try it,
but you're not going to be able to do it.
It's like it's like just an impossible task really in
the world of you know, automotive production. And then this

(45:55):
guy that this uh, this this person, Um, what's his name, Michael?
Did I say, yeah, Michael Hiltic. He goes on to
say that, um, there's another thing that that Apple fans
kind of missed out on two and that traditionally, um,
you know, technical advances within the automo automobile industry are profitable.
You can you can create something technically advanced and make

(46:15):
a lot of money in the auto industry, but you
can't advance the vehicles all that much themselves. And and
you can Now it can be done. I'm not saying
it's impossible, but right now, okay, like he points out here.
He says, um, the real money to be made right
now likely is an advanced in the process of making

(46:35):
the cars themselves, not the cars themselves. And he goes
back to all the way back to Henry Ford. He says,
you know, Henry Ford didn't invent the car. He pioneered
the assembly line. He made it better. Remember, he made it,
He made it a much uh yeah, exactly, He just
improved on what was already there. So he says that,
you know, the next big thing in automobiles isn't necessarily

(46:56):
going to be, um, you know, an all new car.
It's going to be a better way to make that car. Right.
And this is a great point too. There's a little
bit of psychology that comes into play, and it's the expectation,
the brand expectation of a consumer, of a car buyer
right or would be car owner is probably I've given

(47:18):
the choice between a car that is thirty four thousand dollars,
four door sedan make whatever your pick is, most regular
car you could imagine, right, uh, and everything's average, and
then there's another car that's the same price but has
three wheels or five wheels. People are overwhelmingly going to

(47:40):
go with the vehicle. They know people tend to, especially
with the purchase of that magnitude in the average in
the average person's life, people are going to tend to
stick with what they know works. So reinventing the car
is a very very tricky proposition. Reinventing, even if wanted
to go more broad and call it the daily driver,

(48:03):
very difficult. Well, people have tried, and people have tried. Yeah,
we've seen a lot of advances that are I mean, again,
you say three wheel and that's an old idea of course,
but um, but there are new three wheel vehicles as well. Sure,
they're different power trains. There's all kinds of things that
people are trying to do, but they almost always end
up being treated like novelties. Yeah they do. I mean,
they're they're early adopters, I guess. You know, people that

(48:25):
jump in and you know half they have it. They've
gotta be the first on the block to get that.
And then there are people that kind of you know,
wait for for that to uh, you know, a dance
a little bit and maybe try out the second generation
of that product. And then there are others that will
just outright refuse to do it at all. You might
appreciate this. One of the saynes that my grandfather had
was he would he would never buy like a new car. Uh,

(48:46):
he would wait because he wanted to see what broke
on people's cars for a few years before he bought one. Smart. Yeah, no,
I think it's a smart move. A lot of people
won't buy a first year Automan deal because the bugs
aren't worked out, even a first generation vehicle. I mean
that's not always the case. They might wait just a
couple of years into production and then by the first

(49:08):
ship and still but um, you know, people are a
little bit leary about something brand new. And I know,
I know that there are some people that just have
to have the newest and you know, latest and greatest,
But those are also the ones that are gonna end up, uh,
you know, figuring it out with the company, what's wrong
with that vehicle right through a series of trial and error.
Here's an example that maybe interesting to you. UM, go

(49:33):
into this brand expectation thing. So let's say let's take
a home appliance company Maytag and say Maytag says, you
know what we're going Just gang busters were in three
out of five kitchens in America or something, and By
the way, folks, I just made that number up. I
have no idea. It's probably not three out of five.

(49:54):
That's a really high number. But let's say that they
somehow get there and they're ecstatic, they're over there, over
the moon or over the blender or whatever, and then
they say and they say, you know what, let's make
the Maytag car. Even if it's a good car, sales
are gonna be garbage because people are going to think, like,

(50:16):
why would I spend so much money on, you know,
trusting this company that makes appliances. I think that would
be an interesting comparison for you, Scott, because, as you know,
many early car companies are several started out as appliance manufacturers. Yeah. See,
I was right away. I was thinking, wait a minute,

(50:36):
we've talked about this so many times. You were you
going at this? Yeah, you're right now, You're right though.
The people people would be leary at first at first,
until it's a proven thing that yeah, they can make
a quality vehicle. And so how long How long would
they have to take a loss on that? Five years,
a decade? Yeah, yeah, maybe, I mean, and that's the
problem is that they're trying to It would be so
expensive to do this, you know, to just start something

(50:58):
like this right now. I mean I could see, oh man,
who we're talking about, like, you know, federal regulations and stuff.
But I mean it would be a lot cheaper to
do this type of thing years ago, way way cheaper.
And I would say, yeah, I mean, it might already
have been done by this point. Of course it wouldn't
be as advanced as it would be today, but it
would be a lot cheaper endeavor for them to take

(51:21):
at that point, you know, and back in versus right now. Um,
And you know, to be honest, I mean, there's so
many things that are choking you know, new new industries
like this that you know, it's hard for them. I've heard,
I've heard them. Well right here in Atlanta, the founder
of the Home Depot, I can't remember the guy's name,
but he said that if he were to try to

(51:42):
start up something like the home Depot right now, yea
Arthur Blake, Arthur like that's it. Yeah, um, he said,
um here, to try to start the home Depot right now,
it would be impossible because of the rules and regulations
that are that are in place now versus when he
initially started that I don't remember when that was. I
want to say it's like the late seventies or early
eight ease was when he began that. But um, I

(52:03):
think that's the same thing with automobile manufacturing, is that
it would have been easier for them to jump into
this back then. But again, would they have that much
money back then? I mean apples around. They just didn't
have the kind of cash they do now. So maybe
it's just a it's a silly argument to make, I guess,
But um, you know, it seems like it's a tough
environment to do this in the least. But I think

(52:24):
that all of the signs for a long time we're
pointing to the um maybe the more profitable advantage or
course of action probably is a better way to say it.
The more profitable course of action for Apple is to
have is to become attached to UH car manufacturer more
than one has. As the author of this article puts it,

(52:48):
Apple inside or something like BMW I three with Apple
inside Audi Audi whichever money like Apple inside. Yeah, But okay,
then we get back to the same argument that broke
down negotiations in early who owns the data? And that's
the big problem, Like Okay, so it goes it goes
off to the cloud. Who controls all that data? Who

(53:09):
has the rights to all of that information? Or do
they share it? And then what what does that mean
to what does that mean for us, you know as consumers?
What does that mean? Man? This gets really really tricky
really quickly, doesn't it. I mean it, it's it quickly
goes off the cliff. I guess, um, you could take
it in a scary direction, or you could say, well,
it's it's harmless. Really, they're just they're just gathering data

(53:30):
to make the product better. So well, you know that's
the But I'm saying, you've got two directions, right. You
can say, like, you know, I I just I'm gonna
close my eyes and think that, you know, everything's gonna
be fine with this, or you can go the opposite
way and say this is the end of the world.
Let me just try to take some of the derision
out of my voice to make it the world a

(53:51):
better place. Right. But we have maybe one one last
thing before we get into some uh philosophical bruising on
Serres Scott. Uh. We have some recent news about Apple's
car that's right, a new hiring uh Porsche's technical director
has moved over to the Apple Car program, and or
at least Apple we should say, yeah, Project Titan, or

(54:14):
it's still around. Um Alexander Hitzinger. Yeah, this is the
guy who helped design Porsche's new race car, the one
that won lamon in h. Apple recently also acknowledged the
Apple Car because they wrote a letter to the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration the NHTSA, which you have heard

(54:37):
Scott and I talked about before, where they acknowledged that
they were investing heavily and self driving cars. This was
a letter essentially begging regulators not to put too many
restrictions on testing these cars just because somebody was new
to the game. So they saying they want they want
new entrance to the auto industry to have the same

(54:58):
rights as everybody else who's already applished. Right, exactly, got it.
And so also in a recent article just in December,
it's when he's sixteen from computer World. Uh, someone points
out that Apple and they say Google as well will
abandon manufacturing plans and just start making operating systems. Okay, wait, wait,

(55:20):
did you say Google as well? That's what they that's
what they say, oh, interesting, Now, Google is the one
that has that kind of gum drop looking vehicle right
that has no pedals, no steering wheel out of that
that's a scary idea for a lot of people. Yeah,
I think, you know, I think people want that. This
reminds me of something that is a little bit tangential.

(55:41):
So one of my friends works with an airline and
I was hanging out with them and some of their
airline buddies. Is this snake bite This is not steak ok? Good, well,
you never know. I'm not gonna call it grown man
snake bites. They could be maybe if they saved my life,

(56:02):
I would be like, sure, I'll call you a sneak by,
but that it's your friend's nickname. Right. For anybody who
has who doesn't understand this reference for please go back
and listen to what was the last week's episode. You
know what, I think it. I think it made it
into two. I think one for each thing. But but
sneak by the side. No, these were people with completely

(56:23):
legitimate names and uh and great people. And one of
them has has an interesting position on the necessity of pilots,
and he said, for commercial airlines, the pilot is there
primarily to make the passengers feel better, And he said, yeah,

(56:43):
there should be someone behind there in case something goes wrong,
but it's if nothing goes wrong and simple enough that
we could automate it. And I was on the side
that we need to have a human in the cockpit. Absolutely,
don't you think so? Absolutely? Remember what was it? Was
it in New York or was it Jersey? Was somewhere

(57:04):
northeast where the only reason that the people survived just
because that pilot was able to heroically land, uh Captain Sully, Yeah,
the river. Yeah, and you're right that that's not an
autopilot is not going to do that for you. No, No,
that's not gonna happen. So um yeah, I totally agree
with that that there has to be somebody at the

(57:25):
controls if if they're not actually flying, at least somebody
there that's capable of flying. And that goes back to
you know the weird thing about the Google car. People
need to have that, uh need to have a visual
understanding that if something goes as the British might say,
if something goes pear shaped, then the human, the human

(57:45):
element will be able to take over and save the day.
I like that phrase parachhupes something goes pear shaped. Yeah, yeah,
I'm not quite sure the atomology. I hope I'm not
saying anything incredibly crass. So this this again, This is
the same thing though with with Uber and their self
driving vehicles in um San Francisco. We we mentioned, we
alluded to this earlier on that you know that they

(58:07):
still have to have people, you know, on board. And
by the way, another interesting little bit in that article
was that they have had the same driver of this
autonomous program operating for months already in Pittsburgh. Had not
I didn't have any idea that that was going on,
but you know, they just mentioned that kind of off handedly, like,
oh no, we're not gonna run it any different than
we do Pittsburgh. And this is after they this is

(58:29):
after the other running red lights in the first day
in San Francisco. So heads up, in Pittsburgh, no different
from Pittsburgh. They already know it though, right, they already
know what's going on. So uh, this this brings us
to I guess we'll wrap up with the philosophical thing
or a little more abstract. I know that they're very,

(58:50):
very smart people, much smarter than myself at least. I
can't speak for you, Scott, who are working around the
clock on this. But here's the thing. Apple has made
a profitable practice off of what I would argue as
planned obsolescens. And you have planned obs lescens is right?
Oh yeah, sure, Yeah, they're designing something that they know,

(59:11):
in you know, six months, they're going to release the
newest version and everybody's got to have that, and it's
not going to be compatible backward compatible with the other version. Right.
So I don't want to, especially something like a car,
and people companies increasingly try to shift consumers away from
owning things and being able to fix and repair things

(59:31):
into this disposable lifestyle or this sort of subscription lifestyle.
I don't want to have a car that won't start,
not because there's something mechanically wrong with it, but because
I'm dodging some mandated uh software update that isn't necessary. Also,

(59:52):
do you think people are gonna camp out on the
sidewalk to wait for the newest model to be released?
You know that's a funny thought too, right, Like you know,
like are they gonna wait in line deep? Do you
know to get the I Drive six or then and
then two months later the I Drive six s Right,
where's this going? And that could be a possibility, right
the sport? Right, the I Drive six Sport. So uh,

(01:00:12):
it makes you wonder, like, are they gonna have the
same rabid you know fans for the the Apple car
as they do for their Apple electronic products, you know,
the handheld stuff. Now I'll be frank here, if they
make if they get with McLaren or something, they make
a badass high performance vehicle and it's good you're camping out. Well,
I'm you know, I camp out to look at it.

(01:00:33):
I probably won't be able to purchase one, but but
I'm saying that like the market will respond to quality,
for sure will eventually. But I think in a niche market,
if they have, if they have something that is far superior,
people will acknowledge that because that would be such a unicorn,
that would be so rare, and I want to know
from everybody else. Yeah, and again we're getting back to

(01:00:53):
the niche products like the ferraris and the portions and stuff.
You know that they have huge margins, you know, margins
versus uh, you know something has those those like they said,
um way forer thin margins of you know, like the
the everyday value cars. I guess if you want to
call them that, Um, it's the everyday value cars. But
you know the I guess the daily drivers, you know,
the bread and butter wagons. Yeah, So I want to know, Scott,

(01:01:17):
would you drive an Apple car? No? Okay, I figured,
how about you know? All right, well there you go.
So what about you listeners? If Apple came out with
a car, would you would you give it a shot?
And this is you know, in no way us um
looking down on the fantastic track record Apple has. It's
a tech company. It's just like the x c O said,

(01:01:40):
it's it's a very very different endeavor. Yeah, and it's
not for everybody. I mean, it's just something that I
wouldn't have any interest in really, I mean on many
many levels. So um uh yeah, I guess it's up
to you. I mean, you decide. But people I think
that love the iPhone and love their eye products and
are completely they're completely eye connected, they would love something
like this. So we want to we want to hear

(01:02:02):
what you think if you would if you would get
one of these, and what you see as the pros
and cons and by way of example, if you have
not heard about this yet, please check out our episode
on Elio motors. Uh do we have to do to Scott?
We definitely did one. I think we did an update
as we did. There was there's some later some information
that came about, maybe even this year, I can't remember,

(01:02:24):
but very recent. And we've talked about McLaren too. There's
a McLaren episode with the rapid development I remember um.
Also the Faraday Future. Yeah, and the Faraday which is it?
Is it a show shell company or is it not done? Done? Done?
You never know. We can check out sixty eight research
and see what you think. Yeah, check it out. Let
us know. You can find all those episodes who mentioned
on our website car stuff show dot com, where we

(01:02:47):
have all the audio episodes we have ever done, even
the stinkers. Uh yeah there and there are a few
there there. I hope our ratio is all right, maybe
this one if you are really hated her jokes. Yeah,
that was a rough star, wasn't it. Sorry about that.
That was a while back. I had almost forgotten. Thanks

(01:03:07):
for bringing it up again. You're welcome, Scott. That's what
I'm That's what I'm here for. So we are going
to head out. We will see you next week. Uh
as we're recording this, we're in the holiday season as
you're hearing this, and we want to wish a happy
holiday to you and yours. We hope you're having a
wonderful close of the year. Stay tuned if you want to.

(01:03:31):
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(01:03:54):
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