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This is the juiciest of stories: Apple will have a vehicle on the market place by 2022. It's bully for analysts and writers, because half the time nobody knows what Apple tree really is upwards to; in that location's picayune penalty to reputation for predicting incorrectly. Everybody else is usually wrong, too. It's great for Apple fanboys because it gives them something to talk nearly and predict, or dispute. Information technology's groovy for car buyers because Apple will probably do something great, and unlike.

Here's what we believe: Apple volition produce a car, an EV and perhaps a plug-in hybrid. 2022 may be when Apple tree signs on off on the auto, but not when the car ships. It will have democratic-driving features as good or improve than other cars, only it won't be truly self-driving. It volition have unique aspects. Apple tree will either muscle the 50 states to allow directly sales or piece of work with a thoroughly vetted new dealer network, like Lexus'south, only meliorate.

The BMW i3's Frame.

The BMW i3's frame design.

It has to be an EV

There's little reason to sell a combustion-engine car. If there'due south ane Apple car, information technology volition 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-just won't cut information technology for the driving tasks you face during all 52 weeks of the year. It will be smaller instead of larger, and will be shaped like a crossover or SUV, since that'southward the virtually efficient design. A compact crossover such as the Honda CR-V holds about as much as a midsize machine such every bit the Toyota Camry or Nissan Altima, currently the summit two sellers amidst midsize sedans. In fact, the compact SUV has taken over from the midsize sedan as the meridian-selling body style amid cars today. It could be Apple starts out with something that would exist chosen a subcompact crossover, pregnant a car less than 160 inches long.

Near likely Apple will partner, at least quietly, with other automakers to license chassis and suspension technologies. The most likely donor car would be the BMW i3 (pictured at pinnacle), since information technology's the right size (157 inches), is well regarded, and Apple tree and BMW have partnered in the by. The i3 is also perfect because it comes in EV and PHEV flavors.

Apple tree won't go it alone

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

The all-new Volvo XC90 - ACC with Queue Assist

Adaptive prowl control, shown here by Volvo.

Autonomous driving (well, some) is a given

Add upward all the features you tin find on high-finish cars now, reduce the price l% at to the lowest degree to account for Moore'southward Law, and y'all'll have a car:

  • Stop and become adaptive cruise control
  • Lane keep aid that warns if you migrate out of lane, nudges you dorsum, and probably fifty-fifty cocky-centers the motorcar in a lane
  • Blind spot warning
  • Volvo-like urban center braking for people and cars
  • High-end features such equally nighttime vision and shape recognition that locates pedestrians and deer on night suburban or country roads

Plain the Apple car will piece of work with Apple devices. Information technology will exist interesting to run across how well it supports Android. This could be the beginning motorcar with more than USB jacks than seats.

A sales experience you won't detest

Apple's greatest contribution may exist the cosmos of its own dealer network that treats customers well. That is an amazing undertaking. The country legislatures require cars to exist sold indirectly, through dealer networks. Dealers are the people who benefit the customs by sponsoring youth league soccer in substitution for making the sales feel thoroughly wretched for many customers. If there'south a stock-still price for the auction of the car, you lot get whipsawed on the merchandise-in. If that works out okay, you lot become to work with a separate person on F&I – finance & insurance – which often is where the profits are made.

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

Apple could revolutionize the car sales experience similar Tesla.

In substitution for rating the dealership 10 out of ten on a satisfaction survey, you get a gratis oil change. It would be difficult for Apple to do worse. Dealers do serve some good purposes for the business organization in full general. If the automaker is too dumb to know beige doesn't sell well in the region, the dealer will clarify that.

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

Will an Apple car really happen?

With hundreds of billions of cash on manus, Apple could spend several tens of them, make up one's mind to move ahead, and so still decide the abort the project. A automobile remains a circuitous project.

In an interview with Stephen Colbert, Apple CEO Tim Melt said: "Nosotros look at a number of things forth the mode, and we decide to really put our energies in a few of them." For Apple, that's nearly par for the course, sounding appealing without maxim also much.

Our belief: The Apple machine is a go. Only if Apple hits incommunicable odds volition information technology give up. More likely the car will happen, only not on fourth dimension. In this, the computer and automobile industries take common ground.