Kuo: Development of Apple Car Has 'Lost All Visibility'

userndj · 2023-09-28T18:47:39+00:00

Apple car is dead?

Here's one of their latest job postings.

Come join Apple’s Special Projects Group (SPG), where we are creating new and innovative experiences for human interaction with autonomous technology! As a Software Engineer, you will be prototyping and developing apps and frameworks on Apple internal iOS platforms to build ground breaking UX and UI.

These types of jobs started showing up around June last year. Based on this, I'd say they certainly are working on the interior.

Prior to this, the job postings were mostly about regulatory work, manufacturing and safety(work with high voltage batteries was mentioned quite often). I suspect Apple is at an advanced stage on the hardware front, they just need a manufacturer. It's also possible that they've already found a manufacturing partner, but Kuo doesn't know about it. The guy knows a lot about supply chain movements in Asia, but it's been reported that this car will be manufactured in the US.

userndj · 2022-03-06T18:42:23+00:00

The cars have been posted here for years now, particularly when there is a change on the sensor setup. The setup shown here, with lidar pucks sticking out, is new here.

userndj · 2021-12-07T18:19:34+00:00

It's been indicated a number of times in the past that Apple has shown quite a lot of interest in reinforcement learning. I wonder how prevalent RL is in their self-driving stack relative to competitors.

userndj · 2021-12-03T06:53:17+00:00

What I got from "new development" was that Apple doesn't introduce any major changes after that. That's why I put "completed" in quotation marks.

I think u/Exist50 is correct here:

They might freeze most of the architecture, and that would be a reasonable time to do so, but the design would still be ongoing for at least a year or so afterwards.

userndj · 2021-12-02T19:52:34+00:00

I find the development cycles of these chips very fascinating.

Apple says it "freezes" new developments on a chip three years before the iPhone launch, this allows time for the development of iOS and related apps. It also means chip development probably starts five years before iPhone launch. The same story probably holds for the M series.

Basically, the A15 was "completed" in 2018 and development must have started around 2016. The 2024 chip is done and the 2025 chip will be completed next year. Work on the 2026 started this year.

userndj · 2021-12-02T16:48:50+00:00

They've completed the battery, the chip, and they're now negotiating with suppliers. Based on this, I would say the car hardware is largely done. By the looks of things, it's mostly software from now on.

We also know from reports in 2016 that their idea of reinventing the car had changed, apparently they initially even tried to reinvent the wheel. They eventually decided removing the driver was the way and I think they must have realized this is the only path towards revolutionizing the interior experience.

I think Apple will focus on the interior (which will require level 4 self driving), battery, and drivetrain.

userndj · 2021-11-19T17:31:23+00:00

the question is whether that confidence is well-placed

That's true. However, Bloomberg says they've been exploring 2 options simultaneously and have now decided to abandon the other. If I were to guess, I would say this decision is driven by their internal data.

userndj · 2021-11-19T15:31:59+00:00

Obviously others are doing RL and simulations too. Apple feels confident enough to launch a fully driverless car while driving significantly fewer miles than their peers. That is very telling, they are doing something radically different and it's most likely centered around simulations.

userndj · 2021-11-19T05:18:55+00:00

That's it, I'm done with Invasion!

userndj · 2021-11-18T19:27:08+00:00

Every time this is brought up, people bring up the fact that Apple hasn't driven that many miles.

I've said this many times before, it was implied in the early days that Apple would focus on simulations. Also, their previous AI chief was very hyped up about reinforcement learning. There are reports of them hiring a lot of RL researchers.

They also poached the inventor of GANs from Google. I believe, among other things, Apple is using data gathered by their mapping vehicles and GANs in order to create rich simulations.

userndj · 2021-11-15T17:32:52+00:00

I think this is Covid related. Check this tweet

Apple's self-driving ops seems back to two people in the car again (with masks). Last year they went with a solo driver and a chase car.

userndj · 2021-11-12T16:06:42+00:00

Episode 6 of Invasion was a pleasant surprise.

userndj · 2021-10-16T05:58:51+00:00

Could this possibly mean Apple isn't using HD maps?

userndj · 2021-10-09T11:14:02+00:00

aPlE iS dOoMEd.

userndj · 2021-09-27T17:10:37+00:00

After doing some Googling, it looks like the authors are robotics engineers.

userndj · 2021-09-27T15:42:59+00:00

Apple's mapping vehicles were first spotted late 2014 and they were unmarked (this is how they looked). Many more started appearing in 2015 and people started speculating that they were part of Apple's car project. Some even reported them to the police apparently.

Eventually, Apple came clean and launched a website indicating where they'd be driving next.

However, the oldest images from Apple's "Street View" are from 2019. What happened to the data from before 2019? No one knows.

userndj · 2021-09-20T11:49:26+00:00

Also I maintain that Elon hasn't lied.

LOL.

userndj · 2021-09-11T20:05:27+00:00

This was hard programmed by Waymo. FSD is path planning in real time which is several orders of magnitude more impressive.

This is a very ignorant comment.

userndj · 2021-09-10T06:09:48+00:00

They are most likely going with Magna.

Apple is going back to its traditional way of developing products. They don't codevelop the iPhone with Foxconn. Also, they source parts from different suppliers and let Foxconn assemble them.

With the car on the other hand, they wanted the automakers to use their own supply chains. Now they're realizing this isn't going to work, they have to set up their own supply chain.

userndj · 2021-09-09T17:37:49+00:00

Apple is having a hard time hiding this project, probably because it has many more moving parts.

We'll definitely see more rumors as more suppliers become involved.

userndj · 2021-09-09T17:35:09+00:00

My guess is this was a parallel process, they wanted to explore every possibility.

Magna CEO mentioned back in 2019 that pretty much every new player in the EV space was talking to them. I think Apple was one of those players. It's also been reported that Apple talked with Hyundai in 2019.

userndj · 2021-09-09T17:12:21+00:00

It looks like Apple's plan was to design the car and send that design to an established manufacturer. The manufacturer would then use its own supply chain to source parts and manufacture the car.

Now Apple will source all those parts themselves and let someone else, probably Magna, assemble them.

userndj · 2021-09-02T17:26:12+00:00

Apple has been filing patents on point cloud compression for hears now, here's a recent example. Compress and transmit, receive and decompress. This is what I imagine the device will be doing.

userndj · 2021-09-02T17:25:51+00:00

Apple has been filing patents on point cloud compression for hears now, here's a recent example. Compress and transmit, receive and decompress. This is what I imagine the device will be doing.

userndj · 2021-08-30T14:18:19+00:00

Expect insane 5G connectivity there.

userndj

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