Tim Cook at the Apple event
Source: Apple
A closely watched Apple analyst warns that investors should be cautious about a report that the iPhone maker intends to produce a self-driving car in 2024.
Last week’s Reuters report sent shares of companies building parts for autonomous cars, such as lidar sensors, growing. But the hype was simply speculation that some of these companies could supply parts for the Apple car, TFI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo warned in a note this weekend.
Kuo has built a reputation for accurately revealing plans to launch Apple products and is closely following Apple’s supply chain.
“We believe that the current so-called conceptual stocks of Apple machines are just market speculation and do not involve real suppliers of Apple machines,” Kuo said. “We also believe that because the technical specifications of the EV / auto-car are still evolving, it’s too early to talk about the final specifications of the Apple machine.”
Kuo said the market is “too high” on the Apple car and would not be surprised if the Apple car is not launched by 2028 or later. The earliest he believes could reach the market is 2025. Kuo also suggested that Apple may be too far behind in terms of artificial intelligence to launch a competitive car with automatic driving.
“If the Apple car wants to be successful in the future, the key success factor is big data / AI, not hardware,” he said. “One of our biggest concerns about Apple Research December 27, 2020 2 The Apple Car is that when the Apple car is launched, current autopilot car brands will have accumulated at least five years of big data and will be conducive to deep learning / AI. Is Apple, late, overcoming this delayed gap? “
Apple has kept its big vision for cars relatively quiet. But the company has been testing autopilot technology for several years now, and CEO Tim Cook said he sees the technology as a way to strengthen Apple’s AI systems.
Other analysts were as skeptical as Kuo.
“Apple is conducting research and development in many areas, and while we’re not surprised to hear the media talk about the Titan project for cars once again, we’re very skeptical that Apple will actually produce a car because the profitability of the automotive industry is high. smaller, “Citi analyst Jim Suva wrote in a note last week.