[foxtr0t]

If you're asking this question seriously, I have to ask a clarification question: what are we actually talking about? Are we comparing just certain aspects of production of the whole thing? If you think about this from an engineering perspective for even 30 seconds there are so many differences that come to mind.

- Pack has to go through an order of magnitude more charge cycles than a phone

- Must operate in a much wider variety of conditions than a phone

- iPhones don't need to drive themselves

- iPhones don't need to pass crash tests

- Brakes don't exist on iPhones

- Suspension does not exist on iPhones

- iPhones don't propel themselves at 100 mph

- iPhones weight orders of magnitude less than a car

- Regulatory requirements are way less stringent for phones

- Lights

- ...

I'm sort of dumbfounded by the level of conversation here given this is HN and the reputation is one of very thoughtful discourse on current events relating to technology and engineering.

EDIT: line breaks, looks like I'm further contributing to the downward spiral here.

[dcolkitt]

> Pack has to go through an order of magnitude more charge cycles than a phone

I don't think this is true. Most electric cars are re-charged once a day, which is about the same as a phone.

> Must operate in a much wider variety of conditions than a phone

Also, not really true if you look at the range of temperature and conditions an iPhone is rated for. (Including water resistance. Mine went through a washing machine cycle and came out fine.)

> iPhones don't need to pass crash tests

iPhones protected highly delicate components against hard impact on concrete. That requires similar engineering delicacy as protecting human meat in car crashes.

> Brakes... suspension

The complexity of the accelerometers and camera systems deal with similar engineering challenges of the same quality.

> iPhones weight orders of magnitude less than a car

Does weighing less make something harder to engineer? If anything making complex machines that are feather-weight seems more challenging. Certainly you'd acknowledge that smartphones are harder to build than mainframes, even though the latter is an order of magnitude heavier.

> Regulatory requirements are way less stringent for phones

This is true. But given Apple's unrelenting engineering excellence, there's very little chance they'll design a substandard or unsafe product. Therefore regulatory compliance is merely an issue of hiring enough lawyers. Apple has plenty of cash to hire lawyers. Certainly much more than GM.

> Lights

iPhones definitely have lights.

[mortenjorck]

Each of these comparisons makes sense at only the most superficial level. The automotive industry may have more in common with personal electronics than it did thirty years ago, but forced comparisons belie the unique and complex challenges in shipping a road-legal car.

And yet, that massive gulf is the whole point here.

Apple is treading in 95% unfamiliar waters, but the company has proven time and again this is its secret power. They'd never made portable music players before; they'd never made phones before; they'd never made watches before. A car is simply the ultimate expression of this, bringing to bear all of Apple's experience in entering a market where they have no experience.

[saagarjha]

Wait, they definitely made phones and watches before. You just don't remember them ;)

[agumonkey]

I read about this a few years ago. I really had no memory of their attemps.. but what I wonder is how deep they tried to market these attempts at telephony and other devices. in the 90s. Was it more a little side game or did they claim to 'reinvent the phone' back then ? The only similar event I can remember is the newton.

[mortenjorck]

Technically correct! Still, I’m not entirely sure a prototype desk phone that never shipped and a couple of promotional Think Different-branded quartz watches offered much in the way of relevant experience for getting into the smartphone and wearable markets.

[ClumsyPilot]

> iPhones definitely have lights.

I am sorry, are you trolling?

Are you seriously comparing smash test on a phone with regulatory crash test on a car? Have you thought about this at all? Do iPhones have crumple zones designed in? Do they asses performance of the chassis after 30 years of corrosion? Do they operate in 50 degree Dubai or -30 Siberia? Do they travel at 100 m/h? How many Gs does an SSD (~100) survive as opposed to a human brain (~10)?

I am sorry for namecalling, but this post comes across as very arrogant.

[dcolkitt]

I could just as easily ask you whether cars have to engineer at the scale of 5 nanometers. Or whether cars have to support thousands of third party engineers adding arbitrary add-on components. Or whether automakers worry about hardening their security against nation state actors.

I'm sorry, but do you honestly believe that automobiles are more complex from an engineering standpoint than microelectronics? How could you possibly explain why the microchip was invented 100 years after the automobile?

Every domain has its own engineering challenges. Apples has consistently shown execution excellence across a wide range of disparate areas though. And more importantly an ability to quickly and effectively spin up expertise in new areas. From silicon to machine learning to acoustics to compilers to optics. Read this HBS case study[1] to be amazed at its ability to leverage cross-functional expertise across disparate domains. No large org in the world operates like it. There's a reason AAPL has a 50 times the market cap as GM. There's zero doubt in my mind that if Apple pursues autos, within a decade they'll acquire 5%+ global marketshare.

[1]https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-apple-is-organized-for-innovatio...

[ClumsyPilot]

'whether cars have to engineer at the scale of 5 nanometers'

Thats done by TSMC, but you are right, I have much higher confidence in them producing a car than I do in Apple.

> do you honestly believe that automobiles are more complex from an engineering standpoint than microelectronics?

By two orders of magnitudes, at least! Modern car encompasses microelectronics, safety critical software and hardware design, passenger safety, repairability, corrosion, and thousands of other issues phones and laptops never face. You can't just push an OTA and fix a flawed engine. You can't tell you users 'they are holding it wrong'

> How could you possibly explain why the microchip was invented 100 years after the automobile?

How do you explain that Segway was invented after the microchip?

[nickik]

Tesla designs its own chips, they don't use 5 nanometers but they are working on 7 nanometers. You need to have very good microelectronics to build a modern car.

Yes, car makers have to worry about hardening against nation states. Probably don't do it as well yet however.

However I agree that Apple could go into that direction.

[foxtr0t]

Especially hilarious given I left the "lights" bullet (with zero explanation as the last item) as fool's bait. It was gloriously taken.

[Dylan16807]

Joke's on them, I was only acting dumb!

Seriously, you putting a bullet point with no explanation, and got an equally terse rebuttal. You didn't "win" that.

[foxtr0t]

Let me help you. I offered "Lights" as a design requirement unique to vehicles with respect to phones. Without any explanation it leaves the door open to a surface level counter point "Phones also have lights" that requires a functioning brain and the most basic level of reasoning. Lights on modern vehicles (high beams, low beams, DRLs, blinkers, brake lights) are certainly not simple components, especially those on vehicles sold in the EU where the regulatory body has taken up new technology much faster than in the US. This wasn't a dumb point, cell phone lighting requirements are child's play compared with the requirements of a vehicle lighting. It is 100% valid, but was also placed as bait as explained above. Make sense?

[Dylan16807]

Lights are highly regulated but they're very straightforward regulations to follow. If you're not even going to bother to write out a sentence then it's not worth responding to it seriously, because it's hardly a reasonable objection in the first place; any random engineer could handle it solo.

[ClumsyPilot]

Did i say arrogance?

[starfallg]

>> Pack has to go through an order of magnitude more charge cycles than a phone

>I don't think this is true. Most electric cars are re-charged once a day, which is about the same as a phone.

A car has a much longer service life than a phone, at least 3-4x longer. The battery pack, being the most expensive components of the EV, pretty much has to last the life of the car.

[Ygg2]

> But given Apple's unrelenting engineering excellence, there's very little chance they'll design a substandard or unsafe product. Therefore regulatory compliance is merely an issue of hiring enough lawyers

Wat.

Phone safety compared to car safety is like comparing bottle rocket to Saturn V. If bottle rocket/phone goes south, you generally don't expect loss of life.

Fuck, Tesla can't seem to wrap their head around this. They used standard phone like quality components in car. Which caused stuff to stop working in regular car conditions e.g. noon left in car.

> iPhones definitely have lights.

This has about as much relevance as nothern lights do.

[agumonkey]

I simply asked a question you know, I'm neither a proponent nor an adversary of anything here.

I get you have a lot of knowledge on the matter.. but you're biased and quite emotional it seems.

You're shifting topic a bit.

You were talking about part count, not part complexity. My iPhone battery doesn't have a cooling system and my car doesn't need to fit in my pocket (<= absurd arguments for the sake or arguing outside of the original question)