Apple and the End of the Car

Now that the car is evolving into essentially a smartphone on wheels, it’s no wonder Apple is kicking the tyres.

First, there is the transition from internal combustion engines to electric motors, which have far fewer mechanical parts. Now, enabled by that change, a second shift is under way—one that’s a prerequisite for a self-driving future.

For a century, the automobile was a system of interoperating mechanics: engine, transmission, drive shaft, brakes, etc. As those mechanics evolved, electronic sensors and processors were brought in to assist them, but the concepts changed little. The result was cars with dozens or hundreds of specialized microchips that didn’t talk to each other. Now that auto makers are moving to electric motors, elaborate entertainment systems and adaptive cruise control, cars need central computers to control all these things—why not use them to control everything?

At the hardware level, this might just mean fewer chips handling more of a car’s functions. Yet it has profound implications for what future cars will be capable of, how car makers will make money, and who will survive—and thrive—in what could soon be a global automotive industry made unrecognizable to us today.

No one inside Apple is saying exactly what its plans are, but the company has been contemplating a role in autos for years, spending huge sums on hiring hundreds, then eliminating their roles when its priorities change, and almost as quickly hiring other engineers with similar skill sets, then firing yet more engineers, all to realize a still-mysterious ultimate vision.

The company also recently approached auto makers including Hyundai about a potential manufacturing partnership, then saw talks fizzle. It’s just as likely Apple is, as usual, experimenting until or unless it hits on something it thinks it can do better than anyone else.

“We have seen enough echoes in the supply chain that we know Apple is really looking into every detail of car engineering and car manufacturing,” says Peter Fintl, director of technology and innovation for Capgemini Engineering Germany, part of a multinational that works with dozens of auto makers and parts manufacturers. “But nobody knows if what Apple creates will be a car or a tech platform or a mobility service,” he adds.

Many other tech companies, including Intel, Nvidia, Huawei, Baidu, Amazon and Google parent Alphabet, are pushing into the usually staid, conservative and relatively low-margin world of automobiles and their parts. Meanwhile, traditional auto makers like Ford, General Motors, Toyota, Daimler and Volkswagen, plus longtime automotive suppliers such as Bosch, ZF and Magna, are trying to behave more like those tech companies.

Basically, everyone is shifting their emphasis to software—and hiring like crazy to do it. In the past year, almost every major automotive company has advertised that it would like to hire many more software developers. Volkswagen, for example, announced in March 2019 that it would add 2,000 to its technical development team; the company already employs thousands of software engineers.

“Software is eating the world, and cars are next on the menu,” says Jim Adler, managing director of Toyota AI Ventures, a venture-capital fund owned by the car maker.

From hardware to software

Today’s most complicated automobiles have up to 200 computers in them, just smart enough to do their jobs controlling everything from the engine and automatic braking system to the air conditioner and in-dash entertainment, says Johannes Deichmann, a partner at McKinsey whose expertise is software and electronics in automobiles. These computers, made by an assortment of suppliers, tend to run proprietary software, making them largely inaccessible even to the auto maker.

Such modularity is fine up to a point—when building a Chevy Malibu, does GM really need to know how the windshield-wiper computer works? Yet the proliferation of these narrow-minded processors has led to unsustainable complexity, says Mr. Deichmann.

Tesla, as you might imagine, has been instrumental in pushing the auto industry in a new direction. Since the first Model S, Tesla pioneered replacing hundreds of small computers with a handful of bigger, more powerful ones, says Jan Becker, chief executive of Apex.ai, a Palo Alto-based automotive-software startup. Systems that used to require dedicated microchips now run in separate software modules instead.

This is why Tesla can add new capabilities to its vehicles through over-the-air updates, he adds. Want better acceleration, longer range, an enhanced self-driving system, or your in-dash entertainment system to play fart noises every time you flip your turn signal? Tesla has shown they’re just a software upgrade away. It’s very much like the model of continual updates to the software in our mobile devices we’ve come to expect.

Following suit, auto makers are scrambling to build or commission their own whole-car operating systems. The field is still wide open, says Mr. Fintl. Nvidia offers its Drive OS, VW and Daimler have announced they are, like Tesla, working on their own, and Google is insinuating itself ever deeper into vehicles through its Android Auto OS. To date, it’s still focused on in-dash entertainment and navigation, but Ford recently announced that as of 2023, it will use Android in the displays of all models sold outside of China—including the just-revealed Ford F-150 Lightning—and will also use Google to help manage the data streams collected from its vehicles. GM is also using Android in its all-electric Hummer.

This is where Apple might face a tough decision: While it has the chance to flex its enormous software and chip-making expertise to create a next-generation platform for the highest bidder, the company tends to create products for its own brand, not components for others. Besides, the strategy of being just another supplier to auto makers is already being pursued by Intel (via Mobileye), Alphabet (via Waymo and Android Auto), Nvidia and others.

The enormous complexity and expense of making and delivering vehicles by the thousands, much less millions—and making them safe—are why so many tech companies are joining forces with automobile companies, rather than trying to build their own vehicles, says Ryan Robinson, automotive research leader at Deloitte.

While analysts for years predicted that big auto makers would make short work of Tesla, it turns out electric vehicles are more about software than hardware. And auto makers aren’t yet good at the kind of software today’s cars and drivers demand. Volkswagen decided last June that, despite years of development, it had to delay the debut of a flagship electric vehicle because its software wasn’t ready.

Enter Apple

“This is the big industry mystery, if a famous fruit company is entering the game,” says Mr. Deichmann.

Apple already has its CarPlay in-dash interface for iPhones. But it’s limited to functions such as entertainment and navigation, and has nothing to do with the deeper integration and capabilities required of a true vehicle operating system. Apple has also demonstrated tremendous capabilities in designing the kinds of microchips and sensors that a smart automobile would require, though for now they’re mainly found in iPhones, iPads and Macs.

Apple didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Apple could build an operating system for a whole vehicle, and run it on its own silicon. But the company seeks to vertically integrate whenever possible, to control every aspect of the user experience. So the question is: Would a car maker let Apple treat it as the company once treated AT&T, when it first rolled out its iPhone? Or the music labels, when it launched iTunes? At a stroke, it turned the tables and took control of massive markets and significant portions of our lives.

This February, Apple’s partnership talks with Hyundai broke down, possibly over Hyundai’s concerns about being absorbed into the Apple Borg. Immediately after, Nissan signalled it might be willing to work with Apple.

If there is any tech company on earth with the resources to go it alone, building a new automaker from the ground up, it’s Apple. But there is no indication this is the company’s aim. If Tesla is the model here, it’s unclear why Apple’s executives would want to endure the tortuous process of building the manufacturing, testing and service capacities this path would require.

If providing the brains for other auto makers’ vehicles is unlikely, and competing directly with Tesla and every other electric vehicle startup unsavoury, that still leaves another option for Apple. As the automotive industry inches toward self-driving taxi services, Apple’s persistence in both acquiring and developing software and hardware for electric, autonomous vehicles could signal its long-term ambitions. Could an Apple mobility company, instead of an Apple car, make the most sense?

GM’s Cruise, Amazon’s Zoox and many others are already moving down this path. But since no such robot-taxi service yet exists, save for some limited experiments by Waymo in Arizona, there is potential for Apple to create something it controls completely, while also providing significant additional revenue to a struggling automaker such as Nissan.

Apple and others could design and commission vehicles that bear their branding, and operate as part of a service they provide, with no trace of the actual manufacturer on them, says Mr. Deichmann.

Apple, after all, isn’t an electronics manufacturer. In fact, it outsources all of its manufacturing, much of it to Foxconn—which as it happens is building up its own auto-making capabilities. Rather, Apple is first and foremost a customer-focused company that uses technical know-how to develop products physically made by contractors like Foxconn. It just happens that deep technical expertise is how it realizes its leaders’ visions. And because fully autonomous driving is turning out to be much harder than anyone predicted, Apple could have the time it would need to develop its own service.

It’s quite possible that Apple will end up spending billions on attempts to develop an electric car without ever releasing a product. Or maybe it offers a product or service that fizzles. It’s possible that transportation is so different in scope and complexity from personal and mobile computing that the only way to succeed is through the kind of grand-scale collaboration Apple isn’t known for.

Toyota chief Akio Toyoda said in March that Apple should prepare itself for a 40-year commitment if it offers cars to consumers. This makes sense, especially if the goal turns out to be not merely to create a car, but to replace a significant portion of the world’s 1.4 billion cars with a completely autonomous, emissions-free, radically transformed transportation system. In other words, a trillion-dollar revolution—and Apple’s already pulled off one of those.

Chanel Robinson achieved exactly what the gold rush of blockbuster weight-loss drugs promised: She lost nearly 100 pounds, lowered her cholesterol to normal levels and reined in her polycystic ovary syndrome.

Yet, nearly three years into her journey on Mounjaro, the 30-year-old from Atlanta, Ga., is discovering the hidden costs of the slimmed-down life.

Robinson experiences muscle fatigue daily, feeling physically weak, frail and often cold. Robinson said she experiences bursts of sluggishness sporadically during the day, and has trouble with basic tasks like opening a jar. “It shouldn’t be this difficult,” she said.

GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, Mounjaro and Zepbound have been a success for public health and the pharmaceutical companies that make them. Obesity rates are falling, the volume of food consumed in America is declining and retailers report a slump in sales of plus-size apparel. It has improved health and happiness for millions of people.

But for at least some of the 13 million Americans taking them, losing muscle along with fat is an unexpected downside that isn’t broadly discussed or immediately apparent.

The drugs can cause rapid and significant loss of lean muscle mass, up to 10%, comparable to a decade or more of aging, according to an analysis published by the American Diabetes Association.

The loss of lean tissue is similar to weight loss from dieting, but the magnitude over a short period can lead to frailty, instability and lack of coordination, doctors and researchers say. Another concern is that losing muscle could slow down patients’ metabolism, leading to weight regain.

“We are curing obesity by encouraging frailty,” said Daniel Green, principal research fellow at the University of Western Australia, who contributed to the analysis. Many taking weight-loss medications initially lose fat and feel great, but quickly start to feel weak and lethargic, he said.

Green’s research showed that the rate of muscle loss could be slowed significantly by regular strength workouts. “It should say ‘must be taken with resistance training’ on the box,” he said.

Drugmakers say weight-loss drugs should be taken only on the advice of a physician and as part of a long-term plan that includes diet and exercise.

A spokesperson for Eli Lilly, maker of Zepbound, said Food and Drug Administration guidelines say it should be used “with increased physical activity.” The spokesperson added: “Sustainable weight loss is about more than a number on a scale.”

Both Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk said clinical trials showed users did lose some lean muscle tissue, though at far lower rates than fat. Liz Skrbkova, a spokeswoman for Novo Nordisk, said that trials for its drug Wegovy showed changes in muscle mass didn’t “significantly differ” from patients who took a placebo. Eli Lilly said users lost three times more fat weight than lean tissue.

Rayna Kingston, 30, from Denver, said her injections of Zepbound left her feeling so tired the following day that she struggled to complete anything other than basic tasks. She said she shifted her dose to a Sunday because Mondays were her least busy day. Her partner would bring her meals in bed because she felt so weak.

She stopped exercising, and said her doctor didn’t give her any guidance on strength training or muscle maintenance. “I was relying on Reddit forums to understand what was happening to my body,” she said. She got so frustrated with the fatigue she came off the medication just under two months later.

Experts say that losing muscle at such a rate can be especially dangerous for those over 50 or with osteoporosis or limited mobility as it could lead to an increased risk of injury. “Loss of muscle mass is detrimental to moving around and quality of life, but it is also not safe,” said Katsu Funai, associate professor at the University of Utah.

Elderly Americans are set to be able to get GLP-1s from Medicare from July.

There is also pushback from doctors and regulators against using weight-loss drugs as a “quick fix” to lose a bit of weight.

People who take GLP-1s regain weight four times faster than those who lose weight through lifestyle interventions, and weight regained is often mostly fat, according to a recent analysis published in the British Medical Journal. There currently are few, if any, guidelines or studies on de-prescribing the drugs, researchers say.

The nurse practitioner who prescribed Robinson the medication didn’t warn her that resistance training is essential to maintaining muscle mass, Robinson said. She said she regrets not exercising and now does Pilates once a week.

In the haste to disrupt the obesity epidemic, weight loss has been treated as the singular, undisputed metric of success, which experts say is problematic.

“People worship body weight as an outcome measure because it’s simple, quick and inexpensive,” said Green. “But what matters is fat and muscle mass, which is more expensive to measure as it requires an MRI.”

Grace Parkin, 34, a property manager from Sheffield, England, has lost 125 pounds after she started taking Mounjaro in 2024. “I don’t care about my muscle mass as long as I’m a healthy weight,” she said.

The doctor who prescribed the drug didn’t tell her to exercise, though the pharmacy that sold the medication gave her information on exercise and protein intake, she said.

She didn’t exercise and said she soon felt side effects: a “deathly cold, from the inside” likely because of the drug. Still, she vowed to keep going, saying the weight loss was worth it.

In response to some of the side effects, drug companies are hoping to develop weight-loss treatments aimed at preserving or even building lean muscle mass.

German drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim recently said it had promising results from one such drug. Eli Lilly last September halted a trial of a similar drug.

While weight-loss medications are designed as lifelong treatments for chronic diseases, namely obesity and Type 2 diabetes, they are increasingly marketed as lifestyle fixes.

Tennis superstar Serena Williams, who used GLP-1s to slim down after having children, was featured in this year’s Super Bowl commercial promoting telehealth company Ro’s weight-loss medication.

Serena Williams holding a GLP-1 weight-loss medicine injector.

Serena Williams poses for an ad campaign for a weight-loss drug. Ro/Handout/Reuters

Women may be particularly vulnerable to the drugs’s side effects, which can also include nausea, diarrhea, migraines and rarer cases of pancreatitis.

A study last year from a university hospital in Turin, Italy, showed that women are more prone to adverse reactions to weight-loss drugs than men, including muscle loss.

Green, the researcher, said the issue is of particular concern to those taking GLP-1s recreationally and who don’t have much muscle mass to begin with. Others say a lack of oversight is compounding the issue.

“Patients are self-reporting, and telehealth companies don’t have the patient in front of them to conduct a proper medical assessment,” said Rupal Mathur, an internist in Houston whose practice specializes in weight loss.

She said medical spas are prescribing off-label drugs that don’t meet the criteria set out by the FDA that justify a prescription.

The number of people taking weight-loss drugs who are not living with obesity or Type 2 diabetes is difficult to track since it is unregulated.

However, an analysis by the FDA from 2023 found that more than half of new Ozempic and Mounjaro users didn’t have Type 2 diabetes.

Scientists are calling for more clinical trials to pin down the full effects of weight-loss drugs on muscle loss in different demographics.

“The only studies that have been done have looked at people living with obesity or Type 2 diabetes,” said Green. “That makes it all the more concerning for those using weight-loss drugs in an ad hoc or unregistered way.”

Apple and the End of the Car

As cars become computers with wheels, Apple is eyeing the $5 trillion auto market.

From hardware to software

Enter Apple

As millions flock to GLP-1s, doctors warn the drugs can cause rapid and significant muscle loss.