Posted on 05/28/2016 5:34:17 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Apple has yet to confirm whether it's investing in its own line of electric vehicles, but Reuters is out with more evidence that Project Titan is underway: The tech giant has reportedly been in talks with charging station companies and has hired at least four electric vehicle charging specialists.
Apple has been asking charging station companies about their underlying technology, Reuters reports, for reasons other than providing charging stations for its own employees (which the company already does).
Speculation about Apple's electric vehicle project, dubbed Titan, has gone on for months, with reports indicating the company is aiming to ship its first fleet by 2019. Earlier this year, it was reported that Apple has registered a handful of car-related domains. In a more concrete illustration of Apple's interest in the auto industry, the company recently announced it's invested $1 billion in China's cab-hailing service Didi Chuxing.
For a company like Apple, known for controlling the whole hardware and software ecosystem around its products, investing in charging stations as part of its electric vehicle project would make sense. Moreover, as Reuters pointed out, it would fulfill a clear need: California currently has around 8,000 work and public chargers but will need somewhere between 13 to 25 times more by 2020, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Yet even without adding charging stations to the mix, Project Titan is already a complicated endeavor for Apple.
I assume that, if it’s like some of their other products, you’ll have to send the car back to the factory if the windshield breaks.
It’s slated to use YouTubeLess tires.
Apple will probably know everywhere you go and how long you spend there and how fast you drove. The car will probably gather data on you.
Just because it’s “coming” doesn’t mean it’ll be “going”.
Remember the Volt!
The Volt is still in production, as is the smaller Bolt.
Apple’s Waterloo?
I have owned many, many Apple products for 30 years and have never had to send one back to the factory for any reason.
If the windshield on any of my cars breaks, I have to get it replaced by a specialist, but that is pretty normal. If yours breaks do you replace it yourself in your driveway, using no tools other than a fingernail file and some duct tape?
I actually do replace my own windshields, and the tools are surprisingly rudimentary - a long piece of flexible metal and a couple of sections of broomstick on the ends of a metal cable.
I’m in IT and have had several employees break their Apple devices (iphones, typically). I have the ability and tools to do the repair, but Apple won’t sell you the parts to fix it - you have to send it back to Apple if you want Apple parts to do the repair.
If a few % of the car fleet is replaced by electric cars it would influence the price of crude oil. At present the global production of crude is about 80 million bbl/day https://ycharts.com/indicators/world_crude_oil_production and the price is about 49 USD/bbl
http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/CO1:COM
Chanos believes that a preference for electric cars and trucks can seriously dent the demand for crude oil in the near future.
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Why-Jim-Chanos-is-Shorting-the-Oil-Majors.html
But Apple will be unable to disclose such data, even under subpoena, unless you provide the password, even if you are a Mooselimb terrorist.
That's a good design, a secure design.
What design would you want? A secure design? Or a design open to the Obama Regime?
If this electric car trend continues apace, it looks like most of the nation’s power grid will be dedicated to charging cars once all fossil fuel power generation is completely dependent on wind and solar.
The FBI is warning U.S. energy companies that the oil industry’s downturn is increasing their vulnerability to theft of technological secrets.
Companies that long have faced the prospect of economic espionage must now be prepared for the possibility that workers who have been laid off could be targeted by foreign entities and competitors wanting to steal intellectual property.
“FBI investigations indicate economic espionage and trade secret theft against U.S. oil and natural gas companies and institutes are on the rise,” according to an unclassified briefing report prepared for the energy industry.
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