Faced with fierce competition in the new energy vehicle industry, has Apple chosen to withdraw?
According to Bloomberg citing Apple insiders, Apple announced that it will stop its electric vehicle manufacturing project, which surprised nearly 2000 employees. Some employees have been transferred to Apple's artificial intelligence department, and redundant automotive hardware employees will face layoffs. Apple has not yet publicly responded to this.
Apple makes cars, 10 years without success
Previously, some media sources quoted informed sources as saying that Apple has postponed the launch of its cars from 2026 to 2028, and has lowered the level of autonomous driving from the original L4 level (highly autonomous driving) to L2+level (partially autonomous driving, with more complete functions than the L2 level).
Nowadays, Apple's progress in car manufacturing may shift from being delayed to being "far away". In fact, Apple can be said to have gotten up early in the automotive industry and couldn't catch up with the late season. Since 2008, Apple has had ambitions to make cars, and that year, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had planned to develop the independent car brand "iCar".
In 2014, Apple officially launched its automotive project and named it the Titan Project. Subsequently, Apple began to high-profile poach people, poaching power testing and hybrid electric system engineers from multiple companies such as Tesla and Ford. Apple also formed a luxury car manufacturing team of around 200 people. In 2015, Tesla CEO Musk publicly mocked Apple's poaching behavior, stating that they had hired the people we fired.
Ten years have passed, and Apple's car manufacturing leaders have changed one after another. Their car manufacturing thinking and technology have always been wavering, ultimately facing the current "unfinished" situation. According to a research report by Guohai Securities, the reason why Apple's "Titan" project has repeatedly suffered setbacks is due to differences in management's goals for autonomous driving. Apple wants to do autonomous driving, but there are certain obstacles in both technology and policy.
In response to the news that Apple has abandoned car manufacturing, Musk added emojis such as "pay tribute" and "light a cigarette" (as shown in the picture below).
Electric vehicle analyst Soye Merritt subsequently posted a comment saying, "Apple spent 10 years trying to manufacture electric vehicles with $162 billion in cash reserves, but ultimately came to the conclusion that it was too difficult and the profits were too small - even if priced at $100000. Musk responded," The natural state of a car company is death. ".
Li Xiang, CEO of Ideal Automobile, posted on Weibo that Apple's decision to abandon car manufacturing and focus on artificial intelligence is an absolutely correct strategic choice, and the timing is also appropriate.
"Firstly, if TOC's artificial intelligence is achieved, Apple will become a $10 trillion enterprise; if AI loses, Apple will become a $1 trillion enterprise. Artificial intelligence will become the top entry point for all devices, services, applications, and transactions, and is Apple's battleground. Secondly, if a car is successfully made, Apple will increase its market value by $2 trillion, but the necessary condition for car success is still artificial intelligence. The electrification of cars is the first half, and artificial intelligence is the final." Li Xiang said.
Li Xiang stated that the artificial intelligence extended by mobile phones is bits, the artificial intelligence of cars is atoms, and artificial intelligence spans both the digital and physical worlds.
Xiaomi founder, chairman and CEO Lei Jun later posted on Weibo, saying: I was very shocked to see this news! Xiaomi's strategy is "the whole ecology of people and cars". We are well aware of the difficulty of building cars. Three years ago, we still made an extremely firm strategic choice to build a good car for Rice noodles!
He Xiaopeng, Chairman of Xiaopeng Motors and Founder of UC Youshi, stated that last year there was a discussion that all new entrants to the automotive industry would be listed within 2024, except for Apple. The decade after 2024 will enter the knockout stage and the All Star Game. But I didn't expect Apple to play such a card in 2024.
Automotive intelligence has entered an "acceleration period"
In Li Xiang's eyes, the "finals" of the automotive industry are artificial intelligence. In fact, the intelligence of the automotive industry has entered an "acceleration period" at present.
At present, in order to improve the level of automotive intelligence, leading car companies are launching a centralized upgrade of the entire vehicle electronic architecture. According to monitoring data from the High Tech Intelligent Automotive Research Institute, in 2023, passenger cars will be equipped with 1.735 million intelligent driving domain controllers as standard, a year-on-year increase of 80.2%, with a front-end loading rate of 8.2%. Against the backdrop of centralized upgrading of the vehicle's electronic architecture, intelligence will enter an acceleration period.
On February 18th, Wang Chuanfu, Chairman and President of BYD, stated in a speech at the Guangdong Provincial High Quality Development Conference that the current transformation of the automotive industry has entered a "deep water zone", with electrification continuing on the fast lane and intelligent transformation starting to shift gears and accelerate.
According to a research report by Guoxin Securities, the core of automotive intelligence lies in the application of data flow. In terms of intelligence, with the application of 5G technology and the demonstration of new infrastructure for smart transportation and off road coordination, the level of automotive intelligence has improved. In 2024, it is expected that more vehicles equipped with LiDAR, domain controllers, and L2+level models will be mass-produced (especially independent and new force brands), and L3 advanced intelligent driving will enter its first year.
According to incomplete statistics by reporters, since 2023, car companies such as BYD, Changan Automobile, Avita, Shenlan, Jihu, Zhiji, Mercedes Benz, BMW, etc. have all announced that they have obtained L3 level autonomous driving (conditional autonomous driving) road test licenses. Under L3 level autonomous driving, the vehicle can achieve autonomous driving for the majority of road conditions, taking over most of the driving functions of the car.
According to statistics from Dongwu Securities, the penetration rate of L2 level autonomous driving assistance functions has increased rapidly, and it has been installed on many new intelligent vehicle models priced at 200000 yuan or more. As of December 2023, the penetration rate was 52.7%. The penetration rate of L3 level autonomous driving function is generally low, and it is almost only applied to high-end cars equipped with LiDAR (except for some car companies such as Tesla). The penetration rates of high-speed autonomous driving and urban autonomous driving in December 2023 were 5.8% and 1.2%, respectively (except for Tesla).
Overall, with the increase in penetration rate of L2 level autonomous driving and the entry of L3 level autonomous driving into the "first year of development", related industrial chains such as LiDAR will usher in certain development opportunities.
According to a research report by Guojin Securities, in the long run, the cost of LiDAR is expected to drop below $200, completely solving the key pain points of high costs, standing firm in the field of intelligent driving, and becoming the best choice for car manufacturers. Based on the trend of cost reduction, LiDAR will achieve growth from 1 to N in 2024. It is expected that the sales of LiDAR equipped models will reach 2.21 million units, with a penetration rate of 10.5%. The industry will experience explosive growth, and the future market space of LiDAR will exceed 100 billion yuan.
It is understood that the upstream industrial chain of the car mounted LiDAR industry involves key optical components such as laser emission, reception, scanning modules, and information processing, and is currently mainly led by European, American, and Japanese companies. The midstream industry chain focuses on LiDAR integration and software systems, initially led by Velodyne from the United States, and Chinese companies are rapidly entering this field. According to a research report by Bank of China Securities, it is expected that in 2023, Hesai Technology, Sagitar Juchuang, and Tudatong will occupy the top three global markets with shipment volumes of 46%, 26%, and 12%, respectively. Domestic LiDAR has broad application space on the demand side, and the process of domestic replacement of components is accelerating, which is expected to further reduce the cost of in vehicle LiDAR, improve its penetration rate, and expand the competitive advantage of domestic manufacturers.
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