- It seems like every three months,
some tech company who's
never built a car before
announces they're gonna build a car.
Years go by and we never
hear about it again.
Why is that?
Is it ego? Overconfidence?
As cars become more tech heavy,
it makes sense that a tech company
could make a great car, right?
The answer is more complicated
than you might think.
In this episode,
I'm gonna give you a
timeline of tech companies
getting into cars, the various
reasons why they've done it,
how some of them have missed the mark,
and how others have prevailed.
Let's get into it.
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I wanna start this episode
with an admission, okay?
I have a history of being a
hater, and I want to apologize.
It's easy to talk trash on companies
when they're just a faceless logo
and not a collection of
engineers and designers
who work really hard on projects
that sometimes just don't work out.
So as I talk about the failed
projects in this episode,
I'm gonna keep in mind
that I couldn't accomplish
any of this stuff.
The companies in this
story for the most part
should be applauded for taking a swing
and trying something different.
However, if there are any
flagrantly boneheaded moves,
I'll be the first to let you know.
So a few weeks ago
you probably heard about
vacuum manufacturer Dyson
and their failed electric car.
And if you didn't, here's a short rundown.
Back in October of last year,
Dyson announced that they were canceling
their electric car program.
Apparently, the Dyson
SUV made 538 horsepower,
had room for seven people, and
frankly looked pretty good.
And this wasn't just a vaporware project.
They had a running prototype
with a range of 600 miles.
That's amazing, but it came at a price.
James Dyson had put in 500 million
of his own British pounds for one car.
The project just wasn't sustainable,
so they pulled the plug.
So long, Dyson car. You didn't suck.
Surprisingly though,
Dyson wasn't the first appliance company
to attempt their own car,
which is where our story
begins over 100 years ago.
- Oh, no. Not more old-timey stuff!
- How'd you even get in here?
Chapter one, the early days.
The earliest example I
could find of a tech company
attempting to build a car
was Westinghouse in 1905.
The highest of the high tech
was the steam turbine generators
that Westinghouse was building
to produce electricity
in the early 1900s.
But in 1905, Westinghouse unveiled
their Model 40 gasoline powered car.
The Model 40 made a very
appropriate 40 horsepower,
twice that of the Model T,
but also costs $7,500,
or about 194 grand today.
You can buy something like nine Model T's
for the price of a Model 40.
Obviously selling a car that expensive
even in the early days of the
automobile was unsustainable,
and Westinghouse stopped
building the Model 40
just two years later in 1907,
but this wouldn't be
Westinghouse's last brush
with building cars.
In 1967, Westinghouse
debuted the Markette.
It used 12 six-volt batteries
for a range of 50 miles.
Top speed, 25 miles per hour.
With aero like that, I'm
not surprised at all.
Westinghouse built the Markette
in response to legislation
that promoted EV development
to cut down pollution and
congestion in big cities,
but enough about Westinghouse.
Let's fast forward a few decades
and talk about a company
you might've heard of.
- Thank you.
- Today, Samsung is known
for their high tech products
like laptops, tablets, and phones.
Back in the early '90s, though,
Samsung was much like Westinghouse,
specializing in home
appliances and electronics
until they saw an opportunity.
Samsung Chairman Kun-Hee Lee
was the son of Samsung's founder.
After taking the reigns of the company,
I think Kun-Hee wanted
to do his pops proud
and lead Samsung's ascent over
their arch-nemesis Hyundai.
How would he do that, exactly? Cars.
There is just one problem.
They didn't know how to build cars.
So Kun-Hee did some business
and got Nissan on board to
help them produce a car.
In 1995, Samsung announced the formation
of SMI or Samsung motors,
which would produce re-badged
Nissans under license.
First Samsung-mobiles rolled
off the assembly line in 1998,
directly into the chomping mouth
of the Asian financial crisis,
which was causing trouble
all over the region.
Not good timing.
In the first half of that year,
SMI lost $192 million,
alongside the 45,000 cars they sold,
most of which were bought
by Samsung employees.
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Cause I bought a lot of Donut
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Timing for the Samsung
car was really awful,
and they lost a bunch of money,
and ended up selling
their automotive assets
to Renault in 2000,
who renamed the company
Renault Samsung Motors.
Through the 2010s, they
sold electric cars in Korea,
and the company was actually
slated to have a big revival
this year at the Manila auto show,
which had to be postponed for some reason.
Frankly, I'd like to see Renault Samsung
finally get a win on home turf,
but it's not gonna be easy.
Hyundai was able to buy Kia
during that financial crisis,
which only made their foothold
on the automotive market
even stronger in Korea.
Chapter two, Google this.
Google has been involved with
automobiles for a while now.
You might recall how back in 2012,
Google celebrated
300,000 self-driven miles
in their autonomous Priuses,
which they acquired when they purchased
a small startup called
510 Systems a year prior.
And it was the company behind the cameras
that eventually powered
Google Street View.
510 Systems made the cameras
for a company called Topcon
who sold them to Google.
Not a lot is known about
Google's acquisition of 510,
but I figured it went something like,
"Hey, let's just buy the
source for these cameras.
Oh, wait, they're developing
a self-driving car too?
Uh, we've been trying
to do that since 2008.
Let's buy those guys as well."
But wait, why would Google
develop a self driving car anyway?
For the heck of it? Not exactly.
The company estimated that
a million lives a year
could be spared by driverless cars.
Those sound like pretty good reasons,
but there's gotta be another
reason a search engine
would spend a ton of money
developing self-driving tech, right?
Perhaps something so shocking,
it'll blow the story wide open.
But the truth is they just
wanna make more money.
Google has bought over 170
companies to do just that,
companies like 510 Systems.
In 2014, Google introduced the Firefly,
which showed off Google's vision
for the future of transportation,
which had no steering wheel
and looked like a character
from "Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends."
Right off the bat, I should tell you
that this car was never
meant for production.
It was meant to be a platform
for figuring things out.
You know, like where to put sensors,
giving passengers what
they need in the cabin,
and where to put the dang computers
that drove the car in the first place.
With all these important tweaks,
the Firefly racked up over
a million self-driven miles.
It might've looked funny,
but the cutesy little car
was a big stepping stone
for the next step.
Google's self-driving car
program has since evolved
into its own company called Waymo,
which is both a ride-hailing
app called Waymo One,
active right now in East Phoenix,
as well as an autonomous trucking
service called Waymo Via.
Now, instead of
manufacturing their own cars
like Westinghouse or Samsung,
Waymo has opted to adapt existing cars
with Google's self-driving tech.
Now, obviously it's a little early
to make a judgment call on whether or not
this whole thing is gonna work out.
But so far, this is the best example
of a tech company making their own lane
in the automotive world.
Chapter three, Apple de.ap.
In 2015, The Guardian reported
that Apple was looking into a test site
ideal for autonomous cars.
Now, why would they be interested
in something like that, I wonder?
Well, at that point,
it was an open secret
that Apple had been working
on a car of their own
for some time under the
code name Project Titan.
Apple had supposedly recruited
from all over the automotive
industry to work on the car,
including Mercedes Benz's own
Silicon Valley research head.
I mean, Tim Cook even met up
with the late Sergio Marchionne,
then the head of Fiat Chrysler,
and even took a tour of the BMW plant
where they built the i3.
It sounds like Apple was
pretty freakin' serious.
Now this is the part of the video
where anyone who worked on the project
will probably start laughing at me
because there's pretty
limited info on Project Titan.
Back in 2016, macrumors.com reported
that Project Titan had changed direction
in favor of developing
self-driving tech much like Google.
Supposedly, there was a lot of
internal strife within Titan
over which way to take the project,
and a lot of people were
either laid off or reassigned.
while there are still a
ton of rumors circulating
that Apple is still considering
getting into the car game,
I'm not so sure.
It makes a lot more sense to me
that they would just develop
their own self-driving tech
and license it out to manufacturers,
almost like Apple CarPlay.
Apple was awarded a license
by the California DMV
to test autonomous vehicles
on the road in 2017,
and followed through with
Lexus SUVs supplied by Hertz
outfitted with all sorts of sensors
to keep the things on the road.
In 2019, it was reported
that Apple laid off
another 200 employees from Project Titan,
probably another sign
that Apple is once again
pivoting what Titan actually does.
Now, I know autonomous cars
probably aren't what you
wanted to hear about,
but that seems to be the direction
most tech companies are
going when it comes to cars.
It should be no surprise
that Amazon is on the
autonomous train as well
with a huge investment in
autonomous outfit Aurora.
Amazon said, quote, "autonomous
technology has the potential
to help make the jobs of our
employees and partners safer
and more productive, whether
it's in a fulfillment center
or on the road, and we're excited
about the possibilities." Unquote.
Couple that with their investment
in electric car maker Rivian,
and you can see what their
goals most likely are.
Driverless electric vans with robots
delivering packages to your doorstep.
Chapter four, Sony.
All the way back on
January 8th of this year,
which feels like seven years ago...
I can't remember anything
that happened in January,
except for shooting HiLow season 1.5.
(bell dinging)
Which I just remembered is now available
on YouTube, check it out.
I don't cry this season, but
we did break a lot of stuff.
Anyway, it was January 8th
at the Consumer Electronic Show
and Sony dropped the bomb
on everyone in attendance
with their Vision S electric car concept.
Yes, they designed something
more expensive than the PS5.
I didn't think it was possible either.
The Vision S had all the
features you'd expect
from a current-gen
electric car and then some.
The interior is focused around
the four touchscreen displays
that make up the dashboard.
The rear passenger seats
have their own speakers in the headrests,
And Sony says that it's
possible for all the passengers
to watch different
things at the same time.
And it looks really comfortable.
I haven't even mentioned the exterior,
which also looks really good,
especially when you put it
next to other Sony products.
I'm just kiddin', this thing looks great.
PS3's a good looking machine though.
Unfortunately, you won't
be able to preorder
a Vision S anytime soon.
Sony created this fascinating electric car
as a concept-slash-prototype
in between thing.
They wanted to see how they could best fit
their current tech into a car,
and the best way to do that
was to build their own.
I almost forgot to mention this
thing actually drives, too.
It can hit zero to 60 in 4 1/2 seconds
with a top speed of 149 miles per hour.
Couldn't quite hit 150, huh?
Of all the tech company cars,
the Sony Vision S is easily my favorite.
I think it looks great.
And they're clearly trying
to make the passenger experience better
while still giving the driver control.
So that just leaves one question.
Why won't Sony follow through
and let me buy this dang thing?
Well, like we saw with Dyson
at the beginning of this episode,
manufacturing cars is really,
really, really expensive.
Conclusion.
Take Tesla, for example.
According to auto industry
analysts at Morgan Stanley,
Tesla will have to spend $180 billion
to reach their goal of 10
million cars a year, 180 billion.
Morgan Stanley also predicts
that the company will spend
around $66 billion by 2030.
That's 10 years.
Those are astronomical figures,
figures that would scare anybody away.
And it doesn't get any less
scary the cheaper your car gets.
The other side of the
spectrum is Tata Motors.
the Indian manufacturer
that produces the Nano,
the cheapest car in the
world at $3,700 U.S.
Just one of Tata's
factories, the Sanand plant,
which actually produced the
Nano cost $262 million to build.
And that's just one factory.
Tata has 26 factories all over the world.
It might be costing Tesla and
arm and all of their legs,
but the investment is paying off.
No matter what you think of them,
they're easily the most hyped car maker
in the game right now,
even if I hate all the
tech company stuff they do,
like putting all the controls
on a touchscreen or whatever.
I'm just old school, okay?
I willfully bought a car
older than my dad. Sorry.
I used to think that tech
companies failing to build cars
was a sign of their hubris.
Oh, so you think because you made a phone,
you can build a car?
How 'bout you stay in your lane, Jack?
There're companies that already do that.
But I never considered
that maybe the people
working on these projects like cars too.
And for that, I am genuinely sorry.
Tech companies try these things
because they're made up of people
who genuinely enjoy solving problems
and wanna try things differently.
And as we've seen, they did
a lot of things differently.
They just didn't have the
enormous budgets necessary
to put those dreams into production
in an already crowded industry.
I myself might not want
a self-driving car,
but there are plenty of
people that probably do.
And that's their prerogative.
Hey, thank you very much
for watching this episode of WheelHouse.
If you haven't subscribed to the channel,
please consider doing so.
We put a lot of work into our videos,
and we want to make as welcoming
a community as possible,
and I want you to be a part of that.
Anyway, be kind, and I'll see
ya next time (smacks lips).
