>a well-made electric car can run to a million miles over 50+ years. That's a very different build philosophy.

Source? Apple currently makes the longest lasting consumer devices with the longest lasting software support, so not sure how one can conclude longevity is not in their build “philosophy”.

>I would imagine an Apple car that only supports Apple Maps, Apple Music/Podcasts, and Siri and will only connect to iOS devices...and that costs twice as much as the Tesla for the base model, and more if you want a reasonable range. Pandora? Spotify? Waze? Meh. Sorry. Oh, and don't forget monthly fees for navigation; probably more like the $36/month of the Audi EV than the free navigation for the Tesla.

Why? All of those apps are usable in every Apple device’s OS today, including Carplay. And Apple Maps has had free navigation since inception.

Also, I can get into almost any recent car and plug in my iPhone or Android phone and have access to CarPlay and Android Auto, and get access to a ton of apps, except in a Tesla. Seems like Tesla is being the more restrictive party here.

Fit and finish has absolutely collapsed in recent Apple software. Glitches and bugs all over the place. It's almost enough to tempt one to see if this really is, finally, the year of Linux of the desktop. Almost.

I would disagree about Apple making products to be disposable, though! I've found Apple hardware to be incredibly long lasting. Their phones, ipads, and iphones all last years and years and years in my experience.

> Fit and finish has absolutely collapsed in recent Apple software.

Bugginess abounds more than ever in Apple's software, and I'd love for them to take a cycle off and just work on fit and finish and bugs rather than features. But to be fair, if you're judging against the experience of using Windows, well let's just say that's a low bar to beat.

As far as Linux desktops go, I think the way they run very solidly these days is phenomenal, but I don't think they solve everyday problems (things that watches and phones and other devices can do) as well as Apple. If you embrace Apple devices and services, you have a whole bunch of tools that work phenomenally together in smart ways. I don't think Linux really can match that whole package anytime soon.

> judging against the experience of using Windows, well let's just say that's a low bar to beat.

Honestly, even with all the bullshit that Microsoft has been pulling, this isn't really true. I have used all three extensively in the past year (Windows since I was a teenager, switched to Linux only for 1 year, work has had me on an Apple device for 6 months). Linux just works. Windows usually just works, if you can ignore their asinine "features" such as adverts and Edge nags. Apple is by far the worst of the bunch, it feels like the entire platform is teetering on the edge of absolute chaos, held together only by the thankless work of the community (Brew, Co/lima, etc.). A fresh install of MacOS is completely and utterly incompetent.

> if you can ignore their asinine "features" such as adverts and Edge nags

Ads can thankfully be switched of (at least as of now). As for the Edge nags that's really rich. Especially since it happens in such a slimy way. Indicating in an underhanded way that your browser settings are insecure.

Else than that Windows works mostly fine since XP. Even with Vista I didn't have that much of a hate relationship as the general vitriol would suggest.

Apple did just move to an entire new architecture so I am hoping the bugs will start to calm down soon.

> a well-made electric car can run to a million miles over 50+ years.

That remains to be seen.

You mention Tesla as an alternative, but they're well-known for their fit and finish and repairability issues.[1][2]

Apple's software fit and finish has taken a dive. My Tesla isn't much better. (ex: I couldn't move my headrest for a month.) Poke around teslamotorsclub.com and you'll find all kinds of silly bugs that drag on.

> free navigation for the Tesla

Tesla builds 8 years of connectivity into the initial sticker cost, after that they will be charging.[3] Apple will probably charge too if it also includes network connectivity.

> Pandora? Spotify? Waze? Meh. Sorry.

Apple is especially bad about lock-in. I understand Pandora, Spotify, and Waze are installable on CarPlay (I haven't tried them), but there's still plenty of walled garden stuff going on elsewhere.

[1]: https://www.thedrive.com/news/34144/the-tesla-model-y-is-alr... [2]: https://www.thedrive.com/news/41493/teslas-16000-quote-for-a... [3]: https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/27/23281022/tesla-standard-d...

EDIT: Add bit about software quality.

> while a well-made electric car can run to a million miles over 50+ years

That is a big claim, which is completely unsupported by reality. ICEVs do not get recycled because the engine died. Body rot, repairs that cost more than the value of the car, etc, this is why cars are taken off the road.

If anything, the current batch of early generation EVs are probably going to have shorter than average lifespans compared to established ICEVs, not longer.

There is a someone on YouTube who works driving HGVs for a large vehicle recycling company in the UK. I'm often surprised by the cars that are considered end of life. Cars which I still think of as recent models.

It would be great to see some statistics but to me most of the cars he picks up require some kind of major repair work making it uneconomical to fix. Often not the engine admittedly, the vast majority can drag themselves onto the back of the truck under their own power (and it's so much faster to do that than get out the winch cable that there is a big incentive for him to try). Usually though they aren't running correctly or have obvious issues with the clutch or gearbox. Almost none of the modern cars suffer any appreciable rot.

On the other hand I've been watching the price of 1st generation Nissan Leafs as I want one as a run around and over the last couple of years there prices appear to have increased. There are a couple of companies who will swap a 40kwh battery pack into a 24kwh leaf making it a very usable vehicle indeed, though the people doing this seem to be doing it for sentimental reason as you can buy a 5 year newer car with a 40kwh battery pack for the same net cost.

The price for a full 24kwh battery appears to be in the £2-4k range as even with 20% degradation it's still a huge amount of stationary storage.

I live in the Midwest (US) and all I see is cars rotting. Cars under 5 years where the owner doesn't take care of the paint (wash/wax etc) and the wheel wells start to rust off. I even play a game with my kids where we watch for "Pavement Princess" trucks that have rust.

I've had a good look around my local area and very few of the cars have any visible rust. We have a fairly mild climate in South East England but we do use salt on the roads in winter time.

Of the two vehicles with any noticeable rust, one is a '05 Mercedes Sprinter, these seem to be predisposed to rust. The other was a T registered (1999) Land Rover Discovery but even that has obviously been modified for off-road use so it's hardly fair to include it.

I wonder if this is climate related or US cars are not built with the same rust treatment.

For the million mile mark there is at least one example.

https://insideevs.com/news/559261/tesla-models-p85-1500000-k...

With multiple battery and drive unit replacements we may as well call it Triggers Tesla!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

It is normal for a car with that many miles to need to have some replacement parts. There are users who have reported going over 500,000 km on original battery (20% degradation).

https://twitter.com/IovePianoBlack/status/155158555774626201...

There is a big difference between some replacement parts and having all of the major components replaced multiple times.

I think you read the engine part wrong.

The battery pack was recalled and its replacement has logged 1,000,000 km.

Similarly, three of the four motors were all recalled at the same time, the fourth one wasn't and made it to 1,000,000 km, possibly 1,500,000 as well, the article says they don't know.

Parts which are recalled and replaced by the manufacturer say something about reliability, but nothing about durability: reliability tends to improve.

Regardless, my point is the engines were 3/4 replaced once, not replaced three different times. The battery was also replaced twice, but that's because the interim was a loaner, not because it failed twice.

> The Tesla Model S P85 is a single-motor, rear-wheel-drive car. High power and torque was an issue in the early Teslas, which caused a few motor replacements. Three units were replaced by 680,000 km and the fourth one was running up to 1,000,000 km.

Not sure how you read that as 3 motors where replaced at the same time. It would be somewhat pointless given that the Model S only has a single motor. Three were replaced before 680,000km and the final replacement made it to 1,000,000km.

The word recall doesn't appear in the article. The first battery had a fault. By the sounds of things Tesla may have found a design fault which was then fixed because of the investigation into that particular battery but that interpretation is reading between the lines.

I take it back, it was me, not you, who read it wrong. I had remembered the Model S as being a quad motor vehicle, incorrectly.

Accordingly, I'll grant that this isn't a good example of an EV making it past the million-mile mark. I've made the case elsewhere for why it's not such a crazy thing to expect.

Thanks for your candour. For what it's worth I absolutely agree with you fundamentally there is no reason an EV shouldn't be able to make the million mile mark with only modest maintenance (perhaps having to replace individual components of the motors, perhaps a bearing for example). Fundamentally they don't have points of sliding friction, this makes wear and reliability much easier to achieve.

What impact this would have on the battery is an interesting question but with modern temperature control and BMS systems it may not even be a deal-breaker.

That would not sell.

I didn't buy a macbook because it had Apple logo on it, I bought it because of the M1 chip that was 1 generation ahead of anybody else. Similarly, I bought an iPhone mini because its form factor worked very well for me.

If Apple introduced a VR headset I can already tell you that I won't buy it. If their car is inferior to others on the market then I won't buy it. I think most Apple consumer falls in the same camp as me.

> If Apple introduced a VR headset I can already tell you that I won't buy it.

I might if it worked with existing VR games, etc. because the Oculus software on Windows is a shambles. Lost count of the number of times it just plain won't start because it thinks I'm N Windows updates behind (even though I'm not.) Also had to completely wipe and reinstall a few times. Then when it does agree that I have a headset and it recognises that I'm wearing it, sometimes it'll just ... not show anything for a few minutes. Or a game will crash (not always Oculus' fault) and the software will insist I can't start anything else because the other game is still running...

macOS might have its glitches but software just works 99.9% of the time.

Why would you “imagine that” when CarPlay already supports third party app? Every Apple platform supports third party apps.

The latest iPhone reversed course on the disposability piece a little bit, making it arguably the most repairable iPhone ever.

Yes, and then went and serialised the parts.

Good.

That helps with two things I don't want: thieves stealing my phone, and unscrupulous repair shops using counterfeit parts.

That's to make the phones less of a theft target (for parting out). It's a tradeoff, but one most people prefer.

If the manufacturer makes parts easily available, wouldn't the incentive to steal devices to sell for parts more or less disappear? Same thing with counterfeit parts. The market for stolen/fake parts exists because OEM parts are essentially impossible to acquire legally.

Serialisation is simply another way for Apple to maintain control. You can now repair a device, but only with Apple's blessing and knowledge. The privacy/safety stories they sell are just that.

An iPhone-quality OLED display is always going to cost $150+ new as part. That alone is enough value to steal a phone for parts.

Personally, serialization that alerts the user "you have unauthorized parts, if your battery catches on fire or your screen has crappy colors it's not our fault" -> this is good, I am in favor of this, serialization that disables the device or features -> bad.

The part would have to be easily available and cheap.

The disposability allegation was always bullcrap. iPhones have lead in terms of service lifetime, second hand value retention, and manufacturer software support for so long now and by such a huge margin I wonder at the motives of anyone still saying this.

>while a well-made electric car can run to a million miles over 50+ years. That's a very different build philosophy.

I'm trying to decide if this is something you actually think or is incredibly thick hyperbole. Why would you say a well-made electric car could run that many miles rather than the 200k+ mile cars that actually exist?

EVs are dramatically less complex than ICE cars, there's much less to break.

The transmission, for example, can't break, because there isn't one.

Getting the equivalent of a million miles in RPM out of electric motors is utterly routine.

They also wear brakes substantially less because of regeneration.

There are a lot of reasons to believe they'll last a lot longer than ICE cars.

Well made ICE vehicle could do that too. But the costs are not worth it for consumers. Big ass diesel semi trucks go over 1 million miles, then they are rebuilt and put back into service. Reliability doesn't just come because your car has an electric motor in it.

Because there are Tesla's that have gone over a million miles.

There's tons of ICE cars that have done it too.