341–350 of 699 posts
If I was an Apple shareholder (I guess I am, indirectly through Berkshire), this would piss me off. Apple is in a very good business. Cars are a terrible business. Just compare Apple’s margins to any car company. Also, it’s really hard to move into a business that is widely outside your core competency. It can be done, but the effort is huge, and I suspect the median track record is poor.
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> they've really thought through the UX of a semi-self driving car Minor side note. I'm sure a lot of the experience is well-designed but I can't help but grimace every time I see that huge touch tablet instead of physical buttons on the dashboard.
That’s Ok. A lot of people thought keyboards on phones were an absolute requirement too. Like with phones, having touch screen control everything provides extraordinary flexibility in rolling out new software features and ultimately improving UX. Remember this design is supposed to lead the way into an FSD future achieved through purely software updates. Whether they succeed in automating the majority of miles driven…
I don't want a UI with modes on the touchscreen. More of needing to concentrate on the cursed screen instead of driving.
Lastly, every touchscreen UI is fatally attracted to icons instead of words so I have to pull over and consult the 500 page manual to see what the wretched things mean. Icons have set back communication 5000 years [1], though I doubt Susan Kare will ever apologize :-)
[1] Picture based written languages all evolved towards phonetic, alphabet based ones. There's a good reason for that.
This 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 fundamentally now a company that can move immense amounts of capital into new industries with the underlying ethos of user experience. Also: insane supply-chain management chops, a skill that is more and more transferable - especially for electric cars.
If I was an Apple shareholder (I guess I am, indirectly through Berkshire), this would piss me off. Apple is in a very good business. Cars are a terrible business. Just compare Apple’s margins to any car company. Also, it’s really hard to move into a business that is widely outside your core competency. It can be done, but the effort is huge, and I suspect the median track record is poor.
This 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…
Tesla is an electric car company and an energy company, and they are leading both sectors right now. You can say that their market cap should not be greater than Toyota or Ford etc because the number of vehicles they produce is a lot smaller, but the world is going electric (really, renewable) and Tesla is tee-ed up to take large chunks of the solar panel and car markets. They have said they are going to produce a sm…
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I have never felt safe using any touch screen while driving.
What you’re missing, though, is that from Tesla’s perspective you shouldn’t be driving while trying to use it. Or much at all. I prefer hardware to software and I’d hate to control my Jeeps with a touchscreen but my Jeeps aren’t driving themselves.
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Tesla and Apple have figured out that could is a better stock multiplier than does .
Isn't that how the entire stock market works? Valuations based on net present value of future projected earnings. You just need a story about future earnings that enough of the market will buy into. Both Apple and Tesla have enough track record to credibly tell such a story.
That last part seems to be missing.
Likely because the smart money knows that retail investors + indices = momentum trading on sectors. As there's no ability for anyone to call BS in the way they used to be able to.
Or to put it another way: if I'm Toyota, I have a demonstrated ability to build cars profitably. If I'm someone who says I can build as many cars as Toyota, how many pitfalls are there between what I say I can do and actually doing it?
Admittedly, corporate conservatism and risk avoidance in leadership is absolutely a thing, but it feels like we're rewarding claims of execution over actual execution.
Die hard apple fans will love it no matter what and no matter what they sell and at what price, they'll buy it.
Would Apple be required to make their car parts interchangeable with the generic aftermarket brands and car service centers? IIRC there is a law specifically for car manufacturing. I can imagine a dystopian future with custom non-standard parts, specialist repair centers, restrictions on what you can do with it, Apple being able to track everywhere we go, what we listen to, who is with us, and establishing a network…
I can't even begin to imagine how a walled garden for a car would look like. Perhaps there are examples from already existing car manufacturers.
There are lots of reasons why you might want to stay inside the walled garden. The higher the value of the car, the stronger they become.