Last week when I visited the Frankfurt Motor show, I met several senior German car company officials. Normally when it comes to new entrants into the market, the discussion revolves around the Japanese, Koreans, or as seen last year, around Chinese car companies. This year competition was closer to the shores. 
There was a definite concern regarding the foray of Silicon Valley companies into the car industry. Interestingly, there was less focus on Google or Uber entering the market with their own branded cars, but serious concerns about Apple making its own cars. Apple, with both hardware and software capabilities, was seen as more of a threat than Google, which is considered a pure software platform company. It did not help when the CEO of Peugeot Citroen declared in an interview with FT that he was open to collaboration with Apple for making cars; he just added fuel to the fire. 
So is Apple making a car, or is it just developing an integrated platform combining communications, media, energy and artificial intelligence to enable autonomous cars? There are a couple of strong indicators that Apple is more likely to develop a full car as opposed to just a platform. The first is that the company has been actively poaching automotive expertise from the research divisions of car companies such as Toyota and Honda. Some of the key names it has hired recently include Megan McClain, an automated driving expert from Volkswagen; Vinay Palakkode, a researcher in autonomous driving from Carnegie Melon; and Doug Betts from the quality division at Fiat Chrysler. Earlier in the year it settled out of court with A123 Systems, an electric vehicle battery manufacturer, for allegedly poaching several of its employees. One of Apple’s weak spots has been battery life; with this move it has gained a wealth of insight into lithium ion batteries. Other notable hires come from MIT Motorsports, Concept Systems, Autoliv, as well as other car manufactures such as Tesla, Mercedes, Ford, and GM. Recent news suggests that it has over 600 automotive engineers working on the car project, which is planned for launch around 2019.
The final piece of the puzzle is Apple’s discussions with the Californian DMV, allegedly around applying for a licence to allow for testing of autonomous vehicle on public roads. To date, 10 companies, including Google, BMW and Honda, have been issued test permits. However, Apple places a lot of importance on privacy, and this move would require disclosing details such as the autonomous features, vehicle identification details, along with accidents and disengagement of controls during the testing phase. This level of transparency is in contrast to Apple’s typical closed innovation approach. A more feasible alternative would be to test vehicles privately. In line with this, Apple has been in discussion with GoMentum station, an operator of a high-security test track. All of this activity is indicative of Apple’s intent to enter the automotive industry by the end of the decade.

from Forbes – Tech http://ift.tt/1L7Buat
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