With suppliers unable to reach an agreement and employees frequently leaving, why is Apple still so passionate about making cars?

It’s no secret that Apple wants to build a car.

As early as 2016, Tesla CEO Musk pointed out that Apple was its biggest competitor.

Recently, Apple CEO Cook also gave a rare direct response during an online interview: "Regarding the issue of cars, you know we have to keep some secrets, but we always have some cards in our back pocket."

But on the other hand, Apple's progress in car manufacturing is very slow.

So far, speculation about the official launch date of Apple Car has been postponed again and again, and the outside world can only "make up" Apple's car-making progress through constant speculation. The sometimes good and sometimes bad news makes the Apple Car, which is already like a vaporware, even more confusing.

On the bright side, some media reported that Apple has made a major breakthrough in battery technology, being able to fuse battery cells together and remove the gaps between batteries, allowing the same size battery pack to accommodate larger capacity batteries.

In May this year, the media discovered that Apple had applied for a technology that uses AR technology to project information on the head-up display onto the windshield, in order to achieve an effect similar to that in "Mission Impossible 4" where one could see a map directly on the windshield.

New technologies can certainly arouse people's endless imagination, but Apple has encountered trouble in implementing them.

Recently, media reported that Apple insisted on using American-made batteries, and its negotiations with suppliers such as CATL and BYD that were unwilling to build factories in the United States broke down one by one, and the battery supplier issue is still undecided.

Moreover, it is questionable whether Apple, which has always had the final say in the electronic product supply chain, can continue to maintain this dominance in the automotive industry. The automotive supply chain is longer than that of electronic products. If Apple is unwilling to lower its profile, it is likely to face the embarrassment of no one supplying goods at certain key points.

At the same time, the personnel structure of Apple’s car team is not stable.

In June this year, three senior executives of autonomous driving said goodbye to Cook, including Benjamin Lyon, who founded the car team. Subsequently, in order to fill the gap, Apple transferred Kevin Lynch, a key designer of Apple Watch, to the car department.

Currently, in addition to Lynch, the management of Apple's car department also includes John Giannandrea, head of Apple AI, Doug Field, head of Mac hardware engineering department, Manfred Harrer, former engineer of Audi, BMW and Porsche, and Ulrich Kranz, former head of BMW i series.

It can be seen that Apple has gone to great lengths to build a strong automotive R&D team, but except for two professionals poached from car companies, all the others are "latecomers". This also makes people wonder: Why does Apple not hesitate to break up teams that have already achieved good results in their respective fields and forge ahead on the road of car manufacturing?

The answer is simple: Apple can and must do so.

From the perspective of "opening up new territories", although Apple is at the top level in the mobile phone, tablet computer and computer industries, it was the iPhone in 2007 that defined the smartphone that established its current status.

Although value-added services such as the App Store and Apple Music have brought Apple huge profits, Apple still needs a new breakthrough in hardware if it wants to maintain its position as the industry leader. Therefore, new energy vehicles are an opportunity that Apple does not want to miss.

But in addition to launching an attack on new industries, Apple's huge investment in automobiles is also largely intended to defend its own territory.

It's not just Apple. In recent years, many "outsider" companies at home and abroad have invested in the automotive industry, especially technology companies, such as Huawei and Xiaomi in China, and Google abroad.

Chris Gerdes, a director of the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford University, explained why these companies are rushing into this bottomless pit of burning money: "This is because there is a business model hidden in it that many people have not noticed."

Statistics agencies predict that by 2030, the market size of the entire automotive industry will reach 2 trillion US dollars, and there will be 58 million self-driving cars in the world. The advantages of technology giants in AI, big data, chips, etc. are enough to leverage this huge market.

But for these giants, there is one thing that they care about more than profit: how to further snatch consumers' time.

People spend a lot of time in their cars every day. Take the United States as an example. According to the latest statistics from the American Automobile Association, the average American spends about 307.8 hours in their cars per year, or 6 hours per week. During this time, people's attention is not on the services provided by Apple, Google, and Facebook. If any company can fill this gap, it means that it can eat a huge piece of the pie.

Professor Raj Rajkumar, head of the Machine Learning Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, said: “These technology giants want to intervene in, control and even dominate every aspect of citizens’ lives.

From this business perspective, if you don’t do it, someone else will, and the consequence is that your influence among consumers will gradually fade. Companies like Apple and Google are salivating over the automotive market, and they all want to seize the opportunity to become the butcher rather than the fish.”

In other words, Apple is worried that other competitors will use cars as an entry point to snatch its hard-earned share in the entire software and hardware market, which is absolutely unacceptable for Apple.

In order to seize users' time in the car, Apple has adopted a two-pronged strategy of software and hardware in the automotive field as always, launching the in-car system CarPlay before the hardware. The system supports functions such as unlocking car doors, navigation, making calls, sending and receiving messages, and also has built-in Siri to help users operate smoothly while driving.

CarPlay inherits Apple's excellent system experience. Therefore, even if the hardware faces the dilemma of "difficult birth", Apple has penetrated into the automotive field with its software. According to statistics, 60% of the new cars produced in 2020 support CarPlay.

However, no car manufacturer will be willing to hand over the system completely to outsiders, and Apple will not be satisfied with just "living" on the products of other manufacturers. Therefore, Apple will definitely continue to attack the high ground of self-developed cars.

The full electrification of automobiles is an inevitable trend. Bloomberg predicts that by 2025, sales of electric vehicles will reach 10% of passenger car sales. This figure will reach 28% by 2030 and 58% by 2040. For Apple, such a promising market is absolutely not to be missed.

Technically speaking, Apple has what it takes to succeed in the automotive industry, but there is a problem: Apple's success comes not only from technology, but also from a strong management model. When faced with a field that is completely different from mobile phones, and an automotive industry comprised of 30,000 parts, will Apple be hurt by its own successful experience? After all, there are countless manufacturers in the automotive industry who do not take Apple seriously.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.