Whether Apple can bring another subversion of China market to the industry is the key.

The arrival of iPhone more than ten years ago completely changed the mobile phone industry, and also changed people's lifestyle in the following years.

How much impact will the Apple car listed on 202 1 bring to the automobile industry?

65438+February 2 1, according to Taiwan Province Media Economic Daily, key suppliers confirmed that Apple's first electric car, Apple? Car will be released in September next year, at least two years ahead of schedule, and its prototype has been tested on the road in California.

Following Apple's iPhone material preparation meeting to urge suppliers to get the goods, Apple also put forward material preparation requirements to a number of auto parts factories in Taiwan Province Province, and incorporated them into the first supply chain, including Heda Industry, FTL -KY, Heqin and Futian. Even the supply chain of electric vehicles has seen the practice of "American double A", namely Apple and Amazon.

Bai Yiyang, the international research department of China Merchants Bank, said that Apple is expected to have subversive battery technology. Apple has a unique accumulation in software development. Apple has successfully built an ecosystem around the ios system and can break through the intelligent perspective in the future. In addition, Apple originally intended to cut in from the perspective of autonomous driving, and also did some work in the early stage, including the accumulation of laser radar fusion. Although the field of electric vehicles started late, there is no evidence that Apple has made batteries, but the intelligent cockpit and autonomous driving are on the eve of the outbreak, and there is no generation difference between various technologies, so Apple may play these two fields. Especially in the cockpit field, if Apple takes advantage of its mobile phone ecology to enter the cockpit field, such as human-computer interaction, car entertainment and so on. Its strength must not be underestimated.

Apple's mobile phone has brought great changes to life.

After being woken up by the mobile phone alarm in the morning, the first thing I saw was the iPhone. Usually the last thing I see at night, because I will check social software or play a game before going to bed.

I don't remember when it became a necessity in my life, not only for me, but also for others. In fact, we can regard the past 10 year as the 10 year of iPhone-smart phones have become the mainstream, created companies worth billions of dollars, repositioned all walks of life and changed the world.

It is not hard to imagine that you may be reading this article on your iPhone now.

Apple released a generation of iPhone in 2007, but until the beginning of this century, it was still a relatively small product, limited to a mobile operator, and its target customers were "early adopters" of early technology. But now, it has become a dominant economic force. 20 10 in the first quarter, apple only sold 8.7 million iPhone. In the third quarter of 2020, the number reached 4 1.6 million.

The growth of iPhone business has also promoted the development of Apple. In the past 10 years, Apple has developed from a large computer company with MP3 player as its sideline to a large enterprise with a value of 1 trillion dollars, business all over the world and137,000 full-time employees.

Apple cars have been brewing for ten years.

As early as the Steve Jobs era, Apple intended to set up a car company. In 20 10, Jobs met with martin winterkorn, CEO of Volkswagen Group, and also met with Brian Thompson, an automobile designer.

In 20 13, it was not until Steve Jobs died that Apple launched an intelligent operating system called Carplay, and the famous Titan project was launched the following year.

The Titan Project aims to design an electric minivan, not a passenger car today. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, allowed the Apple Auto Project to recruit people from other projects, and the number may exceed 65,438+0,000.

Apple recruits talents from global auto companies such as Tesla, Chrysler and Volkswagen. Apple encouraged Tesla employees to join Apple, and several important Tesla personnel were dug away, which made Musk very unhappy. He once said: The employees recruited by Apple are all employees fired by Tesla. If they can't get along in Tesla, they will go to work in Apple.

However, during this period, Apple had doubts about building a car and gradually lost its way. Since then, Apple once gave up the car-making plan and began to focus on the intelligent software part. 2065438+June 2007, Cook said: "We focus on the autopilot system, which is the core technology, and we regard it as the mother of all AI projects."

An industry insider said that building a car is a very risky thing. In fact, Tesla was on the verge of bankruptcy in the early days, and the demand for funds in the early days of building a car was huge. A few years ago, Apple, as a manufacturer of technology products mainly based on mobile phones, would really be regarded as a kind of madness if it invested a lot of money in the unknown automobile industry chain.

What is Apple's future prospects? The China market remains the key.

On February 22, 65438, some media quoted sources as saying that Apple is promoting the research and development of self-driving car technology, and plans to produce passenger cars in 2024, which may be equipped with breakthrough battery technology independently developed by the company.

Another source revealed that the core of Apple's car-making strategy is a new battery design, which can "completely" reduce battery costs and increase vehicle cruising range.

Zhang Zhiliang, an observer in the automotive industry, said that it should be the battery that makes Apple regain its dream of building a car. Apple has a unique advantage in intelligent systems. If there is another major breakthrough in batteries, it will undoubtedly have mastered the two major elements of the future automobile industry.

In addition, since the autopilot system was launched in 20 17, it has obtained more than 100 patents on automobiles, including autopilot, body and safety software.

In fact, I believe that many people have already experienced the Carplay car system that Apple let everyone experience earlier.

In the research and development of autonomous driving, it has an absolute advantage over Tesla Apple. Apple has its own operating system, and its strong R&D strength is its absolute advantage. For the use of Apple system products, huge Apple users, whether iOS or OS, have long been used to it, and Apple electronic products and "AppleCar" can be better integrated.

Zhang Xiang, a senior analyst in the electric vehicle industry, believes that one of the biggest advantages of Apple's car-making is the fan base. Apple has produced a large number of supporters in a series of products represented by mobile phones around the world. Apple's operating system and APP have touched the hearts of countless users. If reasonably converted into Apple cars, it will bring huge sales.

China market has always played an important role in Apple's sales, and one third of the world's Apple products are sold to China.

At the same time, China is the largest automobile market in the world, and Tesla has gradually passed the profit crisis after the Shanghai factory was built and mass production began.

In recent years, China's automobile market has gradually shown the development trend of high-end and new energy electrification.

In the luxury car market, since April this year, the sales of luxury cars in China have continued to increase substantially. 1 1 In that month, the sales volume of luxury cars reached 30 1 10,000 vehicles, up by 3 1.8% year-on-year.

During the period of1-1,the cumulative retail volume of new energy vehicles was 903,000, up 2.7% year-on-year, of which 1 1.22% surged.

High-end and electrification are the main directions of Apple cars. In addition, Tesla's price cuts are losing the brand tonality of "luxury cars" to make room for Apple. In China, with the price reduction, Tesla's status as a toy for the rich is disappearing.

China's high-end market and electrical intelligence are very consistent with Apple's car, while the competition for electric vehicles in China market has become fierce, which may be the reason why Apple's car went on the market two years ahead of schedule.

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.