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This is the juiciest of stories: Apple volition accept a vehicle on the market past 2019. It's great for analysts and writers, considering half the time nobody knows what Apple really is up to; there's petty penalty to reputation for predicting incorrectly. Everybody else is usually incorrect, likewise. It's great for Apple fanboys because it gives them something to talk most and predict, or dispute. It's great for car buyers because Apple tree will probably do something corking, and different.

Here'southward what we believe: Apple will produce a car, an EV and perhaps a plug-in hybrid. 2019 may be when Apple signs on off on the automobile, but not when the automobile ships. It will have autonomous-driving features equally expert or ameliorate than other cars, only it won't be truly self-driving. It will take unique aspects. Apple will either muscle the fifty states to let straight sales or work with a thoroughly vetted new dealer network, like Lexus's, only better.

The BMW i3's Frame.

The BMW i3'due south frame pattern.

It has to exist an EV

At that place's little reason to sell a combustion-engine motorcar. If there's one Apple automobile, information technology will be an EV. If there are two, it be an EV and a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV), because much of America lives where electric-only won't cut it for the driving tasks you face during all 52 weeks of the year. It will exist smaller instead of larger, and volition exist shaped like a crossover or SUV, since that's the most efficient blueprint. A compact crossover such as the Honda CR-Five holds about as much as a midsize machine such every bit the Toyota Camry or Nissan Altima, currently the elevation two sellers among midsize sedans. In fact, the compact SUV has taken over from the midsize sedan as the tiptop-selling body style amidst cars today. It could be Apple tree starts out with something that would be called a subcompact crossover, pregnant a car less than 160 inches long.

About likely Apple will partner, at to the lowest degree quietly, with other automakers to license chassis and pause technologies. The about likely donor auto would be the BMW i3 (pictured at meridian), since information technology's the right size (157 inches), is well regarded, and Apple and BMW have partnered in the by. The i3 is also perfect considering it comes in EV and PHEV flavors.

Apple won't get it alone

If and when Apple announces its machine, it will be the work of hundreds and now thousands of Apple tree employees. The effort is codenamed Project Titan, notwithstanding that Nissan makes a large pickup truck called Titan. But but equally Apple doesn't create every physical component on an iPhone, this will be the work of other companies, as well. BMW or someone else will provide an initial level of chassis and powertrain expertise. Apple will source the component electronics for the basics of self-driving from the major players such as Harman, and and then add its own tweaks and interface.

The all-new Volvo XC90 - ACC with Queue Assist

Adaptive prowl command, shown here by Volvo.

Autonomous driving (well, some) is a given

Add up all the features you can find on high-cease cars now, reduce the toll l% at least to account for Moore's Law, and you lot'll take a automobile:

  • Terminate and go adaptive cruise command
  • Lane keep aid that warns if yous drift out of lane, nudges you dorsum, and probably even self-centers the car in a lane
  • Bullheaded spot alert
  • Volvo-like metropolis braking for people and cars
  • High-terminate features such equally night vision and shape recognition that locates pedestrians and deer on dark suburban or country roads

Obviously the Apple automobile will piece of work with Apple devices. It volition be interesting to see how well it supports Android. This could be the kickoff motorcar with more USB jacks than seats.

A sales experience you lot won't hate

Apple tree's greatest contribution may exist the creation of its own dealer network that treats customers well. That is an astonishing undertaking. The state legislatures crave cars to be sold indirectly, through dealer networks. Dealers are the people who benefit the community past sponsoring youth league soccer in exchange for making the sales experience thoroughly wretched for many customers. If there'south a fixed toll for the sale of the car, you become whipsawed on the trade-in. If that works out okay, you become to piece of work with a separate person on F&I – finance & insurance – which frequently is where the profits are made.

Apple Store in Sanlitun, Beijing (but without the rioting horde)

Apple could revolutionize the machine sales experience like Tesla.

In commutation for rating the dealership 10 out of 10 on a satisfaction survey, you get a complimentary oil change. Information technology would be hard for Apple to do worse. Dealers do serve some good purposes for the concern in general. If the automaker is too dumb to know biscuit doesn't sell well in the region, the dealer will analyze that.

Apple would like to sell direct, with Apple stores for cars. Tesla has had some success in direct sales, oftentimes locating showrooms in the same malls where Apple has stores. Dealer bodies will a) lobby against direct Apple tree sales, because it ends the earth as they know it and b) individual dealers volition line up to catch Apple tree car franchises with even stricter rules of expert conduct than Lexus required in 1990 at its launch.

Will an Apple car really happen?

With hundreds of billions of cash on paw, Apple could spend several tens of them, determine to move ahead, and and so still decide the abort the project. A car remains a complex projection.

In an interview with Stephen Colbert, Apple CEO Tim Melt said: "Nosotros look at a number of things along the mode, and nosotros decide to really put our energies in a few of them." For Apple, that'due south near par for the class, sounding appealing without maxim too much.

Our conventionalities: The Apple motorcar is a become. Only if Apple hits impossible odds will it requite up. More probable the car will happen, only non on time. In this, the computer and machine industries take common ground.