Tesla Model 3 Is Changing the Game, What This Means for the Apple Car

Year after first laying out its roadmap for bringing the electric car to the general public, Tesla has finally taken the wraps off of the Model 3, the high-tech, fully-electric car that happens to have an average new car price tag (before any incentives that you might be able to get).

The car not only has huge implications for the auto industry in general, but it also could have significant implications on Apple, especially if rumors that the company is building a car of its own are to be believed.

The Model 3 is a beautiful electric car at an affordable price, and it doesn’t skimp out on specs. One of the main draws of the car over other electric cars is the range that it offers, giving drivers 215 miles (minimum) on a single charge. Not only that, but with a growing number of Tesla superchargers, driving across the country in a Tesla is becoming more and more realistic.

Range isn’t all it offers though – it can go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in under 6 seconds, rates five stars in all safety categories, and seats five adults. Basically, it’s a supercar at the price of the safest family car on the market. And it’s fully electric. And it sold over 200,000 pre-orders 24 hours after being announced.

As you can imagine, the car has serious implications on the auto industry in general. The Tesla Model S was the first electric car to make electric cars cool. It was even rated in many reviews as the best car of all time. Everyone wanted one. So, when Tesla first started creating hype about the “affordable version” of the Model S, the hype just grew and grew. That “cool” factor is very important, not just for Tesla, but for the adoption of the auto industry, and arguably the world in general. Sure, that sounds dramatic, but its undeniable that cars are a major contributor to the greenhouse gases in the environment, and unfortunately people just aren’t going to want to adopt cars that have a low range and no power – Tesla changes that.

So what does all of this mean for Apple? Let’s assume for a second that the rumors are true – within the next four or five years we will see an Apple Car. Apple seriously has its work cut out for it. The company is too late in the game to make the electric car cool. That’s already been done. What Apple now has to do is to take things a step further. It has to make a car that’s more powerful, better priced, or that is designed even better than Tesla’s already-spectacular vehicle. Not only that, but by the time Apple does release a car of its own, there are sure to be other very impressive electric cars on the market.

I would love to see an Apple Car that ties all of Apple’s products together. The car is largely expected to be one of the next major frontiers for the tech world, and this is most certainly not lost on Apple, which has already started looking into the auto industry with the likes of CarPlay. The Apple Car will need to interact with the iPhone and Apple Watch in a way that products like the Model 3 just can’t.

It would also be nice to see Apple introduce new technologies into the Apple Car. Examples of this include new self-driving technologies, or perhaps even the front-window displays we’ve seen in movies and prototype cars. It simply would not be enough for Apple to release an electric car – Apple needs to go above and beyond.

The fact of the matter is that electric cars are the future – while they’ve largely been a concept so far, they’re now a viable option for an affordable yet efficient and powerful car. Apple could certainly take advantage of the electric car revolution, but simply being a part of it wouldn’t be enough. Only time will tell what the Apple Car looks like or what kind of capabilities that it has, but it’s sure to be an impressive product. If it ever comes out, that is.

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What do you think of the Tesla Model 3? Let us know in the comments below.