Jony Ive just showed us why Apple dumped the Apple Car
Imagine how expensive an Apple Car would have been. You don’t even need to imagine too hard, as former Apple designer, Jonny Ive, just showed us how the computer company for the rest of us would immediately have become the car company for very, very few of us with his all-new car design, for Ferrari.
OK, it’s not an ordinary car. Ferrari’s first ever fully electric sports car, the Ferrari Luce hasn’t even been fully introduced. That’s because Ferrari is introducing its latest motor vehicle in three parts, with the actual exterior to be revealed later down the line.
We do know a little about how its engine will work and how its interior, including next-generation, technologically-advanced yet delightfully retro console (which Ive’s LoveFrom agency designed) will look.
The half-million Dollar drive
We also know it will be expensive, with a Ferrari-revealed price tag of (gulp), in excess of $535,000. For that money, you don’t even get an autonomous vehicle, though let’s face it, the kind of people who will own one of these will also be the kind of people most likely to end up with a seat on Epstein island.
This is a vehicle for the incredibly wealthy, and if they want autonomy they’ll hire a chauffeur.
I’ve really enjoyed reading about the car. I particularly enjoyed this positively delighted first look from Jordan Golson.
He knows his Apple history and does a great job pointing out just some of the really rather compelling design elements that promise to make this half-million dollar drive feel as if it’s worth twice as much.
Do take a look.
The cost of entry may have crashed the car plan
The thing is, once you do look at this car and then consider Apple’ approach to product design, it should become even clearer that one of the big reasons Apple shelved its Apple Car project probably wasn’t the fact that Siri was too stupid, but that the complexity of getting into the market and the design ethic the company wanted to follow would have required a price tag at least equivalent to Ferrari’s.
And probably even more.
Think about some of the highlights of the discussions around Apple’s work on this – the new transmission, the design of all kinds of components, work to develop an all new autonomous interface, and more.
Potentially too costly, too complex, and too exclusive
Couple that with the leaks we heard about challenges finding a company willing to actually make vehicles for the company, and I imagine a positive riot in terms of acquiring components for the car, and you have a bill of material that looks more and more expensive.
Would Apple really have succeeded with an Apple Car if it had a price tag of $500,000+?
More to the point, what would success have looked like, other than the satisfying click as you popped your iPhone onto the Magsafe handrest to start your pimped up machine up?
Imagine Apple had introduced the public to a vehicle of this kind.
I think we’d have seen definite crowds gather to look at the vehicle as it sat on display in the windows of the company’s flagship stores. I think they’d have had to close Regent Street to cope with the demand.
But not many people would actually drive one.
A car not for the rest of us
You’d see a few in Cupertino, you’d see a few in Dubai and probably find a couple of ultra-wealthy people driving their vehicle up and down the Kings Road, but beyond those luxury people, who love brand loyalty only until something shinier appears, it wouldn’t have had the reach Apple dreamed of.
It would only have appealed to the high-end luxury market.
That’s where the money is, I guess, but it’s not precisely ‘bicycles for the mind’.
At least, not for most minds.
So, through this lens, I think Jony Ive’s new car design tells us precisely why Apple shelved the project. The result would be too expensive, reflective of a different aspirational time, and socially divisive.
That’s not to say it need always be this way, of course.
Manufacturing costs are a problem which can be solved over time, and Apple’s work on circular manufacturing may well give it access to components at lower cost in future. We shall see how that plays out.
We do know Apple doesn’t like to throw ideas away. Things it invented while working on Apple Car remain invented yet, and the company can and probably will use them in products tomorrow. Particularly once it has its hands on an AI truly capable of autonomous car control.
Particularly if it decides to figure out how to deliver stunning, next-generation vehicles at a price point that makes aspiration available to the many, rather than the few.
That sense of extreme yet accessible tech luxury was tangible to the iPod, iPhone, or iMac.
Jony Ive’s Ferrari doesn’t deliver that.
And neither, I suspect, could Apple Car.
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