- It seems like every three
months, some tech company, who's never built a car before, announces they're going to 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 going
to 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. Big thank you to our sponsor today, Raycon Earbuds. As many of you know, my daily is a Mustang and that comes with some
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to get 15% off your order. Support the brands that support Donuts, so we can keep making better content for your viewing pleasure. 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 going to 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 look 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, (murmur). - 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 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 Marquette. It used 12 six volt batteries
for a range of 50 miles. Top speed, 25 miles per hour. With arrow like that I'm
not surprised at all. Westinghouse built the Marquette
in response to legislation that promoted EV development, 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 he wanted
to do his pops proud and lead Samsung's ascent over
there arch nemesis, Hyundai. How would he do that exactly? Cars. There is just a one problem. They didn't know how to build cars. So Kun-Hee did some business and got Nissan onboard to
help them produce a car. In 1995, Samsung announced
the formation of SMI, or Samsung Motors, which would produce re badged
Nissan's under license. The 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. Let me tell you, I can relate, 'cause I've bought a lot of
Donut merch with my own money. Check out our store at donut.media. We have a new Wheelhouse shirt
for you guys to check out. I think you guys are really gonna like it. It's a medal T, get your own. 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 going to 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 Prius's, 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? "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
want to 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, 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 Self Driving Car
Program has since evolved into its own company called Waymo, which is both a ride-hailing
app called Waymo1, 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 self-driving tech. Now, obviously it's a little early to make a judgment call on whether or not this whole thing is going to 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 the app. 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 people 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 freaking 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 is 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 Car Play. Apple was awarded a licensed
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
of Apple's 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 High-Low season 1.5. Which I just remember 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 Electronics 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 kidding, this thing looks great. PS3's a good looking machine though. Unfortunately, you won't
be able to pre-order 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
four and a half seconds, with a top speed of 149 miles per hour. Couldn't quite hit 150. 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 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, of 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. On 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 US. Just one of Tatas
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 touch screen or whatever. I'm just old school, okay. I willfully bought a
car older than my dad. I'm 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 would you stay in your lane, Jack? There are 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 want to 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 you next time. (lip smacking)
