Apple Car Challenges: Sobering Thoughts

I'd say at rush hour 2/3 of those cars are being used. I'd imagine Uber would just buy thousands of cars. Why not? What's to stop them? I'd just scrap my car and have an Uber car parked somewhere close to my house. I don't care, just so long as I can get to work. I imagine that utilities will soon provide automatic Uber car docks and cars will cluster around them at night. There must be a lot of Tesco car parks that are 99% empty at the moment (at night) rent this space to Uber and in the day, the car park would empty as those Uber cars would be driving around.

Also, I don't mind car sharing so long as I don't have to wait. Uber could easily plan trips that pick up and drop off without having to wait like you do for more traditional public transport such as trains and buses...

Like you said, Apple has $200 billion. That can buy some speed but Apple doesn't have to rush.

Tesla did. From Tesla's founding to the first Model S being delivered took 9 years and they did it with under a billion dollars. They also spent time proving electric cars were viable with the Roadster and secure more funding. Apple doesn't need to take this first step.

So a crappy guess would be 5-7 years to make a car. This is not worth the risk of spending $40-70 billion, especially when you can get away with spending $2 billion and get better results than Tesla.

My main point was the auto companies are so bogged down with legacy (legacy software, legacy manufacturing, legacy thinking, legacy costs, legacy habits, legacy dealerships) that starting from scratch is the better option, even if it does take 10 years.

> and in the course of 2-3 years make it extremely profitable, and in 3-5 years make it into something Apple would be willing to put their logo on.

What your suggesting is, essentially, to unravel 50-60 years of legacy. People have tried and failed. This isn't just a company like GM, a massive institution in its own right, it's all the 3rd party suppliers. I think you're underestimating the work required, even if you assume no worker revolts.

I also don't think Apple wants to manage or take on the liability of car divisions from around the world.

Tesla has taken 13 years to ramp up production to 55k per year, and that was even after lucking out with a down-on-their-luck Toyota manufacturing division complete with experienced management and auto workers getting dropped from Toyota's production portfolio. You hold them up as a standard for progress, but they are literally a toy car company. Ford started producing cars in that quantity in 1911. 20 years from now, Tesla will still be paying high priced consultants with global manufacturing experience for their experience building cars at scale. Tesla will no doubt succeed if they can keep up that pace, but they have an extremely long road ahead before they can even compete with Nissan or Hyundai in the US in terms of production capacity, reliability, and production costs.

That legacy culture that you deride has another name: knowledge and experience. The same Tech-industry "we can do it better than you with no domain expertise" arrogance is exactly the reason why Silicon Valley hasn't made any dents in Health Care, Finance, or Energy, despite the untold billions that their VCs have dumped into those exact industries.

In the 80's people were still designing cars on paper on top of desks the size of a kitchen table. Imagine pulling out an eraser or creating a fresh copy manually if your drawing was too messy. It was so ... damn ... slow. People got paid to drive from one side of Metro-Detroit to another delivering a large cylinder of drawings.

> to bring Toyota's production quality up to the standards of GM in the 1970's

Now cross an OCEAN and do that.

Things get exponentially faster and everyone around the world is now talking to each other instantly. Its hard not to learn from other car manufacturers.

> even after lucking out with a down-on-their-luck Toyota manufacturing division complete with experienced management and auto workers getting dropped from Toyota's production portfolio

This is a failing on Toyota's part and a successful use of this talent on Tesla's. It's a sign of things to come. Not unlike Apple's hiring of A123 System's battery engineers from Detroit or Uber's hiring of Carnegie University PHD students out from under a GM funded research project.

> You hold them up as a standard for progress

Yep. ICE powertrains are complicated, expensive, more prone to wear, need more maintenance and are part of an epidemic global problem. The only sticking point of Tesla's plan is the expensive battery. They're working on that too.

And they are a standard. GM just copied them. From the huge battery at the bottom of the car to Model 3 sticker price on the Bolt. Tesla is now setting the standard.

> but they are literally a toy car company

We all gotta start somewhere. In one sentence you talk about how it took one company 20 years, another 40 years. In comparison what they've done in 13 is pretty spectacular.

> Tesla has taken 13 years to ramp up production to 55k per year

Do you mean to start a company, build the Roadster to prove it could be done, attract capital then eventually sell 55k cars? Because that's way more impressive than buying a factory in 2010 and hitting that goal 5 years later, which is still really impressive.

And why are you only shitting on them? In only 3 years of producing the Model S, its the 2nd best selling large luxury car. They did this with 0 ads and 0 dealerships with 0 dealership ads. Everyone in this country knows GM, Ford, Toyota and Mercedes. They get slapped in the face constantly with TV ads. I wouldn't be surprised if less than 10% of the country knew about Tesla. They only have room for growth.

> That legacy culture that you deride has another name: knowledge and experience.

Good point. I mean bad legacy. To be successful you have to understand what to ditch (ICE powertrains and SOAP protocols), have the guts to ditch it, and know what to hold onto (rubber wheels and robotics). Automakers are not ditching bad legacy fast enough. As of 5 years ago GM was running COBOL and probably still is. I'll bet you $100 Tesla isn't.

> is exactly the reason why Silicon Valley hasn't made any dents in Health Care, Finance, or Energy, despite the untold billions that their VCs have dumped into those exact industries.

All 3 of those industries are heavily regulated and mostly hard problems. Until recently, Silicon Valley has mostly been focused on low hanging fruit. Starting a website is easier than starting a bank due to the shear amount of compliance.

The reason the VCs are dumping tons of money into these spaces is due to their difficulty. Facebook needs money when they buy data centers a few years in, finance needs money right away.

> but they have an extremely long road ahead before they can even compete

Big things like starting a car company take time. Now add Google, Uber and Apple into this mix. There all in the same place but without the COBOL. In fact innovation and ditching bad old ideas are in their blood and Detroit is still running SOAP and COBOL.