Thoughts on Apple Car, Part 151

Michael Schmidt

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Jan 13 · 3 min read

Over the years, Tim Cook repeatedly talked about cars – even when the context of all of those comments was something completely different each time.

I have been collecting all the statements in order to get a feel how the company talks about transportation.

So here is Cook on cars, his own words:

“We talk about the ‘last mile’ of the supply chain — the delivery person who actually brings your product to the door. If that were done with all electric vehicles, that would be a really fantastic thing. That’s going to happen.”

About the personal user experience:

„The simple things, like do you drive to the airport? I haven’t done that in a little while, but when I did, I always forgot where I put my car.“

Here is a quote from Apple’s sustainability reports, so it’s not directly from Cook, but certainly related:

As we shrink the carbon footprint of Apple’s facilities, we’re also continuing to look for ways to reduce carbon emissions from business fleet vehicles, employee commute, and business travel. […] To encourage electric vehicle use, we also offer our employees over 550 electric vehicle charging ports, at no cost – an increase of 67 percent compared to last year – and we continue to add more to meet increased demand.

That was 2016, and in 2020:

We also offer our U.S. employees a transit subsidy of up to $100 per month, and we grew our bus commute program in Santa Clara Valley and China to reduce the use of single-occupancy vehicles. At all of our campuses in the U.S., we offer a total of more than 2300 EV charging stations, which help our employees transition to electric vehicles. Further, we offer campus bicycles and a dedicated bus commute program to facilitate employee commute through mass transit, which we estimate avoided over 6000 metric tons in fiscal year 2019.

Here is a screenshot from that report:

And finally, the most recent comment; originally about Apple Watch:

„Think about the amount of sensors in your car,“ said Cook, adding „and arguably, your body is much more important than your car.“

One quote I and many others I have dived more deeply into was Cook’s remark on autonomy:

But it wasn’t just Cook who talked about a possible future Apple Car, also COO Jeff Williams dropped a comment a couple of years ago during an onstage interview:

Do you have more comments on cars from Apple executives?