Rumors have been circulating about a possible Apple Car any day now. I think this is great for the company and car industry, but terrible for the future of transportation.

In this post, I would like to explore what a world where an Apple Car that is as successful as the iPhone will look like.

Before we do that, let's explore Apple products today.

What?

As hinted in the above sentence, the key problem with an Apple Car is the tremendous amount of negative externalities that an Apple Car will produce. More unfortunate than that, this is a direct reversal from the long-standing precedent of Apple products that have actually brought many positive externalities to society.

Apple products today

One hallmark of Apple products is that they tend to get really popular. Any product segment, regardless of whether there's an established market or not, is fundamentally changed once Apple enters it. Think back to the iPod and how it changed the MP3 player market. iPhone with phones in general. iPads with tables. Apple Watch with watches in general.

Before the iPhone, consumers would balk at a $700 phone. Now paying over $1000 for a phone is considered normal. More importantly, before the iPhone, a smartphone is reserved for a small segment of the population. The corporate executives with their Blackberries, the enthusiasts with their Palms etc. Heck, before the iPhone, even having a mobile phone is not a necessity. Today, the smartphone has penetrated our lives in so many ways that it's very difficult and inconvenient to live without a smartphone.

Alternative services or solutions to things such as maps, messaging, media consumption and so many more are basically either non-existent or extremely inferior compared to using a smartphone.

And I'm not arguing that this is a bad thing. In fact, I'm saying this is a very good thing.

The many good things about Apple products today

One can argue that marketing plays a huge role in Apple's success in selling their products, which I agree with. However, I'd also argue that innovation is a very important factor too. People buy Apple products in droves because they are able to do what many competing products do not do, or do not do as well.

And many of Apple's innovation in their products have positive trickle down effects to their ecosystem, the industry and then ultimately to society itself. A classic example (which Apple likes to highlight) is the App Store and the whole apps ecosystem. The App Store literally created a whole new market segment for apps not only for the Apple ecosystem, but also for the entire smartphone and (arguably) computing ecosystem. The popularity of the iPhone propelled the entire smartphone and computing ecosystem which benefitted society by making possible new and novel services in mapping, messaging, media consumption and so much more.

Products providing a net positive to society is nothing special, of course. That's the least that we should expect. But I argue that the value society received from these Apple products significantly outweighs their cost.

Now, let's see if an Apple Car can live up to its predecessors by these criteria.

A wildly successful Apple Car

What will a world with a wildly successful Apple Car look like?

A few things:

1. People will buy the Apple Car in droves, regardless of how expensive it is.
2. Car manufacturers are forced to compete, producing cars that are similar to the Apple Car at various price points (the Samsung strategy).
3. More consumers are attracted by the new capabilities of the cars, sales of these 'smartcars' skyrocket.
4. Combination of software and hardware ecosystem for 'smartcars' continue to thrive exponentially, creating new and innovative services and solutions for these smartcars. Soon, these smartcars are considered essential, life without smartcars is either impossible or extremely inconvenient.
5. More consumers are practically forced to purchase smartcars in order to go about their days.

This is great for the smartcar industry, this is exactly the same positive feedback loop that the smartphone industry created!

Yes, but now let's look outside the smartcar industry.

• This may reinvigorate the car industry, but a reinvigorated car industry also means more people are buying new cars.
• More people buying new cars means more second hand cars are in the market, which pushes down the cost of car ownership. The cheaper cost of car ownership means more people are buying cars in general.
• More people buying cars means more cars on the road.
• More cars on the road means more space is needed for cars on the road and for parking. This means more roads and parking space need to be built.
• Most importantly, more people buying cars and more cars on the road and higher amount of car ownership means the culture of car ownership is further reinforced, at the exact moment in history where we should be looking at alternative forms of transportation, not cars.

And finally, we are at the crux of the argument I'm trying to make in this post.

A successful Apple Car is terrible for the future of transportation.

Cars, unlike mobile phones, have a tremendous amount of cost that is borne by society. Namely, the roads that cars require to operate. Roads cost society in a few ways. The first, which is fairly obvious, is that roads are built by taxpayer money, not by car owners or manufacturers. In contrast, cell towers are owned and operated by private companies, paid for by mobile phone users via phone bills. Roads cost a lot of money to build and maintain, they are surprisingly expensive!

But more importantly, roads with lots of car traffic necessitates urban planning and design that is oppressive to pedestrians, hostile to density and limiting to alternative forms of transport.

There are many articles, videos and research journals that do a much better job of explaining why roads (that cater to cars) suck. But basically, if you design massive empty spaces for fast-moving steel boxes that weigh around 1000kg that typically only have 1 - 2 people in it, you:

• Can't bike, use a scooter or use any other form of slower transportation safely in those space.
• Can't house people in those space.
• Can't conduct economic activities like setting up a shop in those space.
• Can't socialize in those space.
• Can't build a train line which carries more people more reliably in those space.

When you design cities, suburbs, towns, states for cars, you're forced to build more roads. And when roads dictate your design, you end up paying a huge economic, social and environmental cost.

This is already the reality of many North American cities, and in fact, many cities around the world. In the past few years, there have been efforts to reverse this trend. By investing more into public transportation, cycling infrastructure, and discouraging car usage, a few cities managed to reclaim (some of) their roads. Cities like Vancouver (where I'm currently at) has great public transportation options and bike infrastructure where often it's easier and cheaper than commuting by car. Amsterdam managed to reverse their car-centric policies back in the 60's and 70's, and now they're the cycling capital of the world.

This is progress. This is where we need to head towards because higher density living, public transportation, and alternative forms of transports like cycling are much, much better for the environment compared to cars. Cars are simply unsustainable. Besides, if we want the vibrancy of a dense city like San Francisco and New York, without the congestion and pollution, cars are simply not the answer.

But I fear the Apple Car will undo all of this progress. Apple is a juggernaut, and its ability to upend things is well-documented. It has so far used its power in areas where it brought a huge amount of net positive. (Yes, we can be critical about the environmental costs of producing iPhones and iPads, but I'd argue it's not much worse than producing a rice cooker for example. And certainly producing an Apple Car will have an order of magnitude higher environmental cost.) By focusing its clout and might on the Apple Car, I fear the amount of damage it will do, and I truly think that it will far outweigh whatever benefits a future of smartcars will bring.

An increasing culture of car ownership will just lead to louder voices for better roads and car infrastructure, in expense for much cheaper alternatives. Public transportation and cycling infrastructure will be deprioritized. Urban sprawl will continue and get worse. Lanes will be widened but congestion will never be solved. Road-related injuries and fatalities will continue to soar (at least until automated driving is good enough, and common enough). Public spaces continue to dwindle and shrink, leaving people more isolated indoors. The environment will be in ever more strain due to this unsustainable lifestyle. Health costs continue to soar as the general health of the population declines due to sedentary lifestyles.

But alas, I don't think these negative externalities are at the minds of those in power at Apple at all. To be fair, I don't think any private companies put much thought into negative externalities anyway. I guess the phrase 'With great power comes great responsibility' does not apply here. All I can hope then, is that the Apple Car faces too much of a technical and economic hurdle to either ever see the light of day, or be more successful than the Newton.