By Christopher A. Sawyer
The Virtual Driver

(March 23, 2015) Chrysler minivans running around with sensors cluttering the roof have started a stampede of analysts predicting when Apple will get into the business of designing and building automobiles. With in excess of $120 billion in the bank, the Cupertino, Calif., computer maker has more than enough money on hand to build an self-driving electric vehicle of its own, and put that upstart Elon Musk in his place.

Speculation has gotten to the point that German news outlets are reporting BMW will partner with Apple, and use its knowledge of aluminum and carbon fiber chassis construction to build a vehicle worthy of wearing the Apple logo.

So silly has this speculation become that, soon after BMW denied having any contact with Apple other than on porting CarPlay to its vehicles, the rumor mill began using this as confirmation of an Apple-BMW alliance. The reasoning? Simple. Apple does not allow those companies working with it to announce their role in any future products. If they do, contracts are terminated. Therefore, BMW’s denial is proof of its clandestine work for the computer maker. Clever, eh? Add in the Illuminati, and you have the makings of a Dan Brown novel.

And while we could sit and speculate all day long about Apple’s move into the car sector and what form it will take, it was during the introduction of the 12-inch Macbook that the computer maker showed something that might have a lasting effect on automobiles. Almost since the dawn of automotive time the size of components has been a limitation. As technology improved, things got smaller, more was crammed into a smaller space, and the size of vehicles (in absolute terms) shrunk.

For battery electric vehicle makers, however, the size and power density of the battery has been a major stumbling block, as has the time it takes to fully recharge. Rather than create a new power cell chemistry, Apple did something so simple it was brilliant. It “terraced” the battery pack of the new 12-in. Macbook, which allowed it to extend the battery pack further into the case.

Until this point, laptop makers have settled for placing a uniformly thick battery brick into the base of a laptop, and leaving the areas where the case tapers empty. By alternating batteries of different thickness, Apple has filled some of this dead space with electrical storage capacity and increased the run time of the computer. It has done this while making the case thinner, lighter and more stylish; things that, up to this point, have been mutually exclusive.

Let’s expand this idea a bit, and see how it could apply to electric vehicles.

Given the volumes automakers work in and the regulatory pressure to produce more electrified vehicles (hybrid and full electric), standardizing battery cells and packs around a given set of dimensions drives cost down as volumes rise. Using a standard cell lets you build tailor-made battery packs, but sharing packs between platforms forces automakers to reduce the number of unique battery pack families to no less than three and nor more than five, with the ability to mix-and-match these standardized packs to create a battery infrastructure that meets 75%-85% of its needs.

Buying in volume lowers the price of these packs over time, but the automaker and battery supplier must rely on changes in chemistry or the ability to work the battery harder to increase its output. This is much preferred to changing the design of the vehicle itself, which is many times more costly with a much lower return on investment.



This leaves an opening for a competitor to do as Apple has done, and repackage proven technology in order to increase electrical capacity at an affordable price. If you know the approximate square footage of each vehicle’s platform, it is possible to design a family of batteries that can be used throughout the lineup. The smallest vehicle would use a small number of main battery packs to supply electrical power. These units can then be increased in even-number multiples to move to the next larger platform.

A series of smaller battery packs can be terraced to fill as much space as possible, and — like the largest battery size — be added in multiples as vehicle size increases. This automaker not only has more capacity than its competition, it follows the same battery standardization scheme that reduces cost over time.

If designing from scratch, you might consider a transverse engine/gearbox combination at one end of the vehicle (supplemented by an in-unit electric motor), and a pair of electric motors at the other with a flat floor in-between. The floor would be filled with terraced battery modules They would be capable of driving the car under full electric power in EV mode, provide torque vectoring for more nimble handling, and add all-wheel drive functionality as needed.

Conversely, you could throw convention out the window and extrude the sills and center tunnel out of aluminum, tie them together with extruded bulkheads, and use this backbone to carry the vehicle’s mechanicals. By altering the length of the extrusions it would be possible to support vehicles of many sizes and shapes. The batteries would reside in the extrusions, each would be tested prior to assembly, and military-spec. electrical connectors at the end of the extrusions would snap together when the sections are bonded. Inspection plates would allow access to the connectors, but servicing the battery packs would be difficult unless the extrusions were made up of C-sections with a bonded access panel.

A robust, simple frame such as this would allow affordable low-volume production in keeping with consumer demand for electrified vehicles. It also would let an automaker add or subtract battery packs on the underside of the bonded-in floor panels. Plus, the space inside the front and rear bulkheads could be used to carry more terraced batteries.

Finally, by deleting the batteries in the central backbone it would be possible to create a front-engine/rear-drive vehicle with significant EV-only range and full hybrid functionality. The Lego-style construction method makes economic sense in a world market where EVs, PHEVs, etc. will struggle to reach 5% of the market without significant market interference and subsidies from government.

Is Apple designing a car of its own? I doubt it. If anything it is studying how to take over the central software platform of tomorrow’s self-driving electrified vehicles. However, the terraced batteries of the new Macbook show automakers how they can increase electric power density without resorting to new, unproven or wildly expensive battery chemistries.

The Virtual Driver