Apple halts its car project, assigns all workers to AI

So, for me it was a bold decision to start a self driving car project for Apple but of course they have the resources so why not? Still, it was unnecessary to fight for the gap in the market while they had lots of things on their plate. Also its not a phone, its a car where people can be hurt so it makes things more complicated.

Couple days or some more days ago they halted the development and then pushed all of its workforce to AI research which is businesswise the correct decision as Samsung already have the lead with its new S24 with some nice AI features (like built in realtime in call voice translator). So I guess the boring phone wars (since some years) will heat up again.

a reply to: belkide

Artificial intelligence or IOS (intuitive operating software) as I prefer to call it because machines aren't alive and can't imitate sentience especially behind the wheel (unless you count failing to yield as human behavior) is the future of public transit and apple customers are beta testers in the debugging process.

a reply to: TzarChasm

Yes I am with you on it. Apple also have a bit of advantage because they are witnessing the debugging process of Teslas and learnt a lot without spending.

I am not a fan of self driving cars for a multitude of reasons I won't get into here, especially not en masse.

Do we really want a population so dependant on machines that they are too lazy to even operate and navigate a vehicle with cruise control?

Self driving cars, bah hamburger!

a reply to: GENERAL EYES

Let alone self driving cars, I don't even want to switch to those so called "environment friendly" electric cars if it becomes mandatory. Its a lie + control + no fun of course.

originally posted by: belkide
businesswise the correct decision

“Here’s the team from the failed car project, find something for them to do in your department!”.

If Apple didn’t learn the right lessons, their AI crash course will turn out same as their car.

a reply to: gb540

I think the same and we are talking about 1000 plus people wasted their time because of wrong management.

Finally realised that electric cars are junk have they?
Typical Apple always two years behind.
Maybe they sussed out that a car can't be permanently plugged in to a socket like their phones need to be.

a reply to: belkide

Environment friendly my big white butt.

Show the greenies the what it takes to produce their precious "environmentally friendly" vehicles and watch heads explose like a Lithium Battery.

originally posted by: belkide
a reply to: TzarChasm

Yes I am with you on it. Apple also have a bit of advantage because they are witnessing the debugging process of Teslas and learnt a lot without spending.

Tesla is slightly different because they invested so heavily in EV technology, it seems Apple wants to go in a different direction, making cars more "aware" without compromising the engine performance.

The long and short of it is, "they" want society dependent on computers to do all of our thinking. This is a broad spectrum socioeconomic theme.

originally posted by: GENERAL EYES
a reply to: belkide

Environment friendly my big white butt.

Show the greenies the what it takes to produce their precious "environmentally friendly" vehicles and watch heads explose like a Lithium Battery.

It's true that it takes about 10 tons of carbon to produce an electric car and only about 6 tons to produce an equivalent ICE car.

However, as soon as an ICE car drives off the lot, it is using fossil fuel continuously. The electric car uses only electricity.

It's true that some of the electricity used to charge up the electric car comes from burning fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, etc.).

However, a battery electric car travels much farther on the amount of fossil fuel energy it gets from the grid than an ICE car would travel on the same amount of fossil fuel--especially because battery electric cars use regenerative braking. And, of course, an increasing fraction of the grid electricity these days is being produced by renewable sources.

So an ICE car is going to burn fossil fuel at a relatively constant rate per mile travelled for its entire lifetime. The average fleet MPG standard for new light vehicles in the US today is about 40MPG. A modern battery electric car will consume fossil fuel at a rate of around 100 to 120 miles per gallon of gas equivalent if all of the energy in the gas was converted to electricity with 100% efficiency. But of course, it's not. The average fossil fuel power plant conversion efficiency in the US is about 40%. But today, about 40% of grid electricity comes from renewables, on the average, and right now, those two factors cancel each other out, so the average iCE car today consumes about 3 times the amount of fossil fuel per mile traveled as an equivalent battery electric car. As the fraction of the electric energy produced by renewables on the grid goes up and the fraction produced by fossil fuels goes down, the relative advantage that electric cars have over ICE cars will only get better.

Right now, the 4 ton difference in fossil fuel required to manufacture an electric car relative to an ICE car is paid off in about 2 years. If it lasts more than 2 years, its lifetime use of fossil fuels will always be less than an equivalent ICE car.

a reply to: Boomer1947

I suppose such an investment makes sense if you're not out in the middle of one of the poorest states in the USA with poor infrastructure living on disability benefits to the tune of $550 a month before loan payments for emergency dental work and paying off a maxed out credit card trying to keep hotdogs and ramen in the house.

But you do you, surely everyone in the country can afford these new vehicles and all the benefits to the environment.

Once we freeze to death in the winter or die from the heat in the summer because we can barely make the current utility bills as it is, there will be less of a burden on your precious "system" and more and more of the priviliged elites can travel freely and take selfies of themselves in designer gear enjoying the America that left the rest of us behind to die in third rate medicaid funded nursing homes, if we're lucky enough to be found out in the middle of nowhere and transferred to one in the first place when the dementia takes complete hold over an already fragile mind.

Just because I'm having a good day, does mean it's always this nice.

Count your blessings and try to remember there are still Born and Raised Americans living with subpoverty incomes doing the best they can to keep up and manage within the realm of their abilities and technological proficencies.

Not everyone is as lucky as the New Dynamic and not all of us can afford each and every technological improvement as they become available, no matter how cost efficient the initial investment may be.

a reply to: Boomer1947

And where did you get all those figures.

You are obviously ignoring the line loss, the transformer loss. The loss by needing more energy put into the battery then you get out. The use of fossil fuels to make the green energy equipment.

You do know every individual wind generator takes more than 120 tons of coal to make it. Toxic metals form solar panels and the cars batteries themselves.

Electric vehicles are much less green than the fossil fuel ones.

a reply to: Boomer1947

Superior fuel economy justifies telling Americans what kind of car they can buy? Free market means supply meets demand. Shutting down the ICE market despite consumer demand isn't visionary or justice or even well intentioned, it's an attempt to pigeonhole everyone into buying a product we don't want. And who do you think gets the profits? This BS is just Pfizer all over again, taking advantage of a "crisis" to rake in millions of dollars while ordinary Americans pay the price.

When Americans as a nation check the ballot box that says "ICE is evil and we don't want it anymore" then we can talk about gradually reducing the industry as sales numbers go down.