How would one go from making no cars at all, not even parts, to making them?
The same way you go to making phones. Or own CPUs: huge upfront investment, buying the best people, companies and partnerships.
Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources
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Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources
#52"It remains unclear who would assemble an Apple-branded car, but sources have said they expect the company to rely on a manufacturing partner to build vehicles." Does Apple have enough money (cash, line of credit capability) to simply buy an automaker? I can see where it would make the most sense to partner but having an option to buy at a later point could bring advantages to Apple.
> Apple has $191.83 billion in cash, according to its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings I would say so. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/29/apple-q4-cash-hoard-heres-ho...
(GM's market cap is $58.98 billion right now, for comparison's sake.)
Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources
#53The Tesla Model 3 already embodies the minimalism, software focus, and vertical integration that have driven Apple's success in the phone market. Right down to the custom SoC and capacitive touchscreen in lieu of buttons. I'm really curious what Apple's differentiators will be. Also, 2024 still seems aggressive to deploy self-driving for real.
door handles?
It's funny because it's true. The door handles are among my least favorite parts of the Model 3, along with the control stalks on the steering wheel (both their mushy feel and lack of physical wiper controls combined with the crappiness of the auto wipers). Apple could certainly improve on those, although Tesla does have better handles on their other cars already including fully automatic doors on the Model X.
Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources
#54The Tesla Model 3 already embodies the minimalism, software focus, and vertical integration that have driven Apple's success in the phone market. Right down to the custom SoC and capacitive touchscreen in lieu of buttons. I'm really curious what Apple's differentiators will be. Also, 2024 still seems aggressive to deploy self-driving for real.
>I'm really curious what Apple's differentiators will be. There's room for more than one car company like this. If Apple brings high quality, tight fit and finish, elegant design, software focus, vertical integration (including their new M1 processor tech), logistics support (charging station network, maintenance, etc), and "next-level batteries" to the mix, then I'm sure they'll find space in the market. If Apple ca…
But lately Apple has been trending towards not including the charger.
Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources
#55You can only use iFuel energy cell with your iCar. And of course you can't use anything but iTires with it and navigate with anything but iNavigator monitored by our iAI. Have a nice day and enjoy your iRide.
Also you can only take your car to the Genius Bar, which has a three week wait time.
Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources
#56This is starting to make increasingly more sense even though Apple making a car seemed laughable a few years ago. Apple is fundamentally now a company that can move immense amounts of capital into new industries with the underlying ethos of user experience. Apple Card was perhaps a dipping of the toes moment. In theory, Tesla shouldn't be worth what it is because the tech behind it is increasingly getting commoditize…
>Apple is just about the only company with a similar ethos and enough money and patience to be a viable competitor and have a competitive brand known for quality.
Mostly agree, though I suspect a few of the major car companies like Volkswagon/Audi and Toyota/Lexus are capable of this as well.
But yes, Apple has the cash reserves to not just manufacture electric cars, but to build out the necessary infrastructure network as well:
- charging stations blanketing the country
- battery replacement stations for faster "charging" on the fly
- local maintenance stations
- etc..
Apple could centralize sales to Apple's website, and transform "dealer networks" into "maintenance networks". Sales can be handled in a centralized manner, but maintenance still requires locality.
All that requires large upfront CapEx, but Apple is one of the few that has more than enough cash reserves for that.
Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources
#57I remember a story about how when competitors opened the first iPhone, they were surprised to see how the entire phone was more or less a battery with a screen attached to it. I do wonder if Apple building a car would generate some sort of similar epiphany, related to batteries or not.
Electric vehicles are _incredibly_ simple to begin with so a decent chance.
But I also think that the electric car space is already very simple. Apple would be going head-to-head with Tesla which has already stripped away almost everything into a large dash-mounted monitor.
Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources
#58"It remains unclear who would assemble an Apple-branded car, but sources have said they expect the company to rely on a manufacturing partner to build vehicles." Does Apple have enough money (cash, line of credit capability) to simply buy an automaker? I can see where it would make the most sense to partner but having an option to buy at a later point could bring advantages to Apple.
They do not have to buy an automaker. There is for example "Magna" a canadian-austrian automotive supplier [0][1] which also produces complete cars for their customers (contract manufacturing) [2]. Magna has started producing electric vehicles recently, for example the Jaguar i-Pace. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_International [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Steyr [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M…
I would expect that more than a few traditional automakers would trip over themselves to make a deal with Apple too.
Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources
#59Re: Apple targets car production by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery tech: sources
#60Apple has been in and out of the car game for a few years now, with executives coming and going. What I'm about to say will be as meaningful as this hear-say article, but I feel that Apple management, and its shareholders, have no idea what it means to build a car. Things like this need 100% commitment from the management, Cook just doesn't seem like the guy to do it.
The news about it recently was shuffling it back under their AI executive: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/12/08/giannandrea-tit...
As Gruber quipped - “This car is as smart as Siri” sounds like a threat, not a selling point.