Here is the proof that Apple is secretly developing a car battery

businessinsider.com ^ | May 14, 2015, 12:00 PM | Rob Price

[ckilmer]

For several months now, rumours of increasing credibility have circulated that Apple is secretly working on an electric car project.

This week, the Cupertino company reportedly will settle a lawsuit brought against it by A123 Systems — a large-battery company that alleges Apple deliberately poached its employees to develop its own car battery technology.

[Minutemen]

I hope it is a better battery than the “exploding laptop batteries” from a few years ago.

[roadcat]

It may be that Apple is going to make a car, or it may be something entirely different with the car a red herring . . .

I agree that it may be something entirely different. My thinking is that it may be electric-assisted bicycles and trikes. Think Apple Bicycle. This would put them in competition with Ford Motor Company and their E-Bikes. It's a growing field in it's infancy, ready for Apple to make a killer electric bike. I'm about to buy one. Problem is, they're artificially crippled by current laws in California limiting their speed. This is an area where Apple can make a huge impact and sell millions of bikes.

What's with all the Apple-haters on this thread? Sure is amazing how they say they aren't interested in Apple, yet they jump on every Apple thread and spend all their time here. They should save their time by staying away, and buy Apple stock, a double win for them.

[John Valentine]

Swordmaker, you more than anyone know that whenever Apple is mentioned on FR, no matter the context.or specific subject, the kindergarten crowd comes out to boo.

It’s a given, a constant. They are all beynd reason, fact, and persuasion. It’s just how it is with them.

But I applaud and respect your patient manner with them all.

[babygene]

“And Apple and Xerox’s solutions to GUI’s bear very little similarity to each other. It is only people who are not familiar with both who seem to think they are alike. They aren’t.”

It’s vastly different today but it wasn’t when the first apple came out. I have used both and probably still have a copy of both. Plus I have a brother who was with PARC.

[ckilmer]

I do not put much credence in rumors where Apple is concerned anymore. Too many of them have turned into smoke and nothing. It may be that Apple is going to make a car, or it may be something entirely different with the car a red herring . . .
...........
The apple watch is proof of concept that the apple brand can move between consumer products.

Your idea that Apple won’t build the cars themselves but rather design them and have someone else build them with the Apple logo — seems reasonable. After all, that is their business model.

The point of all the articles is that apple is investing a lot of man hour/money into cars. Further Apple can afford to invest a lot of money with a long lead time to profitability. Finally Apple is good enough to be profitable in electric cars.

The presence Elon Musk making electric cars plus the desire of Apple’s founder to make electric cars helps to ensure that Apple stays on point.

[TurboZamboni]

“Ginger 2.0”

[fireman15]

I agree that it may be something entirely different. My thinking is that it may be electric-assisted bicycles and trikes.

That is what I think would be most likely. A recumbent trike with an aerodynamic fairing and decent batteries could probably weigh less than 200 pounds, have a range of approximately 200 miles using a 72v 30ah battery, be able to average 50mph with a full charge using less than a dollars worth of electricity. A trike with those specs would be 20 or so times more efficient than any current electric car and much cheaper to produce.

The parts could be produced in developing countries and assembled here. Apple would probably dress them up with solar panels and enough technological bells and whistles enough to make them appealing to young people and sell them with a hefty mark-up.

Most of this could be accomplished now with off the shelf parts, but currently there are legal performance limitations on electric bicycles and trikes that put extreme limits on their usefulness. Also the safety would certainly be no better than a scooter or motorcycle. It would take a company with billions of dollars in reserve and millions of loyal customers to bring widespread acceptance to this type of vehicle.

If Apple execs actually believe in the global warming religion... then they really have no excuse not to be exploring this type of technology.

[kvanbrunt2]

i know the history still it was not his original idea. borrowed the concept. from willing owners.

[roadcat]

Most of this could be accomplished now with off the shelf parts, but currently there are legal performance limitations on electric bicycles and trikes that put extreme limits on their usefulness.

Nice pic of that trike. I've been looking at getting an electric bike, as well as modifying my existing bicycle to be electric assisted. I'll probably do both. The legal limitations are that if you exceed the legal limitations (speed etc.) then you have to license it as a vehicle for the road. Apple has a lot of clout, and may be able to get these legal limitations modified. As you say, you can build your own with off the shelf parts. You can set it up to be just under the legal limits in order to ride it on the road; then add in an extra battery for extra speed and use it off-road.

I would look forward to seeing what the tech wizards at Apple would dream up. I really think they're working on a project like this.

[9YearLurker]

What’s illegal about Apple “poaching” another company’s employees?

[IncPen]

[norwaypinesavage]

Automobiles have been developed for much more than a full century. In that time, the winning companies provided cars that went faster, were more comfortable, held more stuff, were safer, AND COST LESS. The losers were the ones that didn't do all of that.

My current family car holds 7 very comfortably, goes 500 miles between fill ups for 70 bucks, hauls a boat as well as a ton of stuff, heats at -40 outside, cools at +125 outside, fills the tank in 4 minutes, and costs under $40K. I'll look at an Apple car when they can beat ALL of that.

[MeshugeMikey]

adobe used to have a fairly decent rudimentary 3D imaging product...

It wont run on my computer..and there isnt anything Ive found to replace it

[fireman15]

I actually did retrofit a couple different bicycles with motors that I purchased from China through eBay. I put an 80cc engine on one and a 500 watt hub motor on the other. Neither was technically road legal.

The mountain bike I put the 80cc engine on was amazing. Because it was a 2 stroke engine, it had a “power band” which meant that if you were climbing a hill and let the speed get under 15mph it would start to bog down and lose power. It would easily do 35mph however and would maintain this speed over most small hills. Because it was so light it had a completely different feel than a normal off road motorcycle. Obviously, it was not street legal in any way.

The bicycle with the hub motor was silent when being used and would maintain 25mph on the flat, which made I technically not street legal as well, but I doubt whether the police would ever pay attention to it. It had limited torque but would still accelerate relatively quickly.

The type of brushless hub motor that I installed... worked by electronically creating a rotating magnetic field and when you increased the throttle setting the field would rotate faster and pull the permanent magnets within the hub around with it. The problem with this is that if you increase the speed of the rotating magnetic field to much faster than what you are actually travelling it basically loses its grip on the magnets and just slips past them and you lose torque. The problem is that this type of motor doesn’t do as well on hills as the wattage rating suggests that it would.

The bike with the electric motor didn’t quite meet my expectations. I installed gel cell batteries that gave it over 25 miles of range. It would go faster and further and cost me much less than electric bikes available already assembled. However the motor and batteries weighed more than the bike and we live in a very hilly area which the bike didn’t handle very well.

Both of them were proof of concept tinkering projects for me. I was able to sell each for quite a bit more than I had into them. I learned quite a bit that I didn’t realize before I put them together.

[minnesota_bound]

Apple will seal the battery in the car!!!
You gotta take your car to a Apple store to get it serviced by Apple genius’s.

[roadcat]

Both of them were proof of concept tinkering projects for me.

Thanks for the good info, you've done the research on where I want to go. I was thinking about putting a rototiller engine on my bicycle, but abandoned the idea. The electric hub motor you mentioned is probably the one I've been thinking of installing, costs about $650 for the kit. Can't find my bookmark on it. As for buying a bike, I've been looking at the Pedego Cruiser for my wife, as she is petite and it would be a good fit for her. It has a 500-watt silent hub motor using magnet tech. Costs $2300. We're both seniors and handling hills on our bikes is tough, so I thought an assist for hills would make riding more enjoyable. I really hope Apple does a bike.

[AFreeBird]

I’ve played around with earlier versions of an open source program called “Blender”. It seemed pretty flexible back ten. I’m not a graphic designer so I can’t comment on usefulness or functionality.

http://www.blender.org/features/

[MeshugeMikey]

Thank you.

[Talisker]

Parallel development is based on the non-transfer of substantive information between involved parties. The moment the Mac team showed up at PARC - even before that, when Jobs saw PARC and could describe it to his team -parallel development went out the window.

There’s a difference between litigated boundaries of development definitions that can be pursued or defended in court, and the actual process of development. The windows GUI was openly discussed and studied. Development by all companies in this area, including Apple, was incestuous. In fact it had to be, so that each player could stake out an approach it knew someone else didn’t have yet. To do that, everyone had to be in everyone else’s business - and was.

[fireman15]

I spent $250 on the hub motor; it was advertised as 600 watts using a 36v battery. They are actually a little cheaper than that these days. I would be sure and buy from a dealer with a lot of good feedback. For that price the kits come with the controller and everything else necessary to get it working minus batteries. The measured maximum output of the one we purchased was less than 500 watts which is about what I expected.

I bought the bike for $120 at Walmart. For the price it was a very good bike with an aluminum frame and wheels. I purchased the three 15ah lead acid gel cells locally for $120. I spent another $40 or so for materials to build a rack and enclosure for the batteries. So that came to $250 + $120 + $120 + $40 = $530.

It had approximately twice the storage capacity and nearly twice the power of any commercially available electric bike that was available at that time. It could do 25 mph for approximately an hour without any assistance from me.

Next time I would go with a 48v 1000w motor. They are not much more expensive than the lower wattage motors. I prefer the motorcycle grip style throttle over a thumb throttle or crank sensors. I would love to get an electronic controller with regenerative braking but they cost considerably more and you are probably better off using the money on better batteries.

It is not a difficult project. You will save a lot of money compared to buying a completed electric bike. Since a retrofitted bike ends up being fairly heavy, you might think about retrofitting some type of trike for your wife. Something like a Schwinn Meridian. I am not that fond of how trikes handle corners, but once you get used to them it is not that big of a deal.