Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#101

Post by threeseed » Tue, Feb 27, 2024, 7:38 PM UTC

wombat-man wrote: post #71

yreg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AVP has not failed yet. Saying so today would be akin to stating that the iPhone failed in the fall of 2007. Some did, Steve Ballmer laughed his butt off, convinced that no one sane will ever buy a $500 phone.

Yeah but didn't the first iPhone sell pretty well? I tried a demo of AVP in NYC the week after release. The staff casually mentioned that they had units in stock if I'd like one. I think apple is having a difficult time selling these things. I had a harder time getting a hold of an iPad pro over a month after launch. Maybe later versions will catch on though.

iPhone sold 270,000 units in the quarter it was launched.

About the same as the Vision Pro.

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#102

Post by cududa » Tue, Feb 27, 2024, 7:38 PM UTC

jcgrillo wrote: post #35

exe34 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you missed all the people complaining that it'll put them out of business?

No, but having tried it I can't figure out what they're talking about. Seems like more NFT-esque nonsense.

That's a really myopic observation. They're very very different. ChatGPT Pro helps me learn new concepts in new languages much much faster than I did in the past.

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#103

Post by ARandumGuy » Tue, Feb 27, 2024, 7:38 PM UTC

I'm kinda surprised it took this long. On a broad level, there's nothing that Apple really brings to the table that would help them build a successful car. They don't have the internal expertise necessary to help with the practical elements necessary to build a car, like fine tuning a suspension or manufacturing brakes that work. And they don't have the logistics infrastructure necessary to handle actually manufacturing a car.

The main thing Apple had that could help them build a car is a lot of money. But they could also use that money to get into food delivery or manufacturing CNC machines. Realistically, if Apple invested their cash into car manufacturing, they'd just end up with a whole lot less cash.

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#104

Post by wredue » Tue, Feb 27, 2024, 7:38 PM UTC

filmgirlcw wrote: post #18

Good. This was an idea that never made any sense to me. It’s high overhead/low-margin and requires infrastructure, sales and after-sales support that just aren’t aligned with how Apple does business. It’s one thing to create a new car company (even tho those attempts usually fail), it’s another to purposefully take it on as a business line when your existing business groups prints money and have 40%+ margins. Especia…

Apple started work on this car when vehicles were still reasonably priced.

I’d wager this cancellation is purely due to there being no chance in hell Apple could get the Apple premium for it when vehicle sales are stagnating due to massive price increases.

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#105

Post by bcx » Tue, Feb 27, 2024, 7:38 PM UTC

I still think it's reasonable to have Apple consider building a car. Their core competency is in design, integrated platforms/ecosystems, and outsourced manufacturing.

Assuming that they could use their supply chain expertise to simplify and outsource manufacturing, the cars of the future likely looks more like a software enabled consumer electronics device than a consumer mechanical device, and there are some really neat things you could do in that ecosystem that only apple could pull off (cutting edge design coupled with high end finishes, and a software ecosystem with a self-driving car as a new platform).

That said, it's likely not the right market timing for Apple to bring an electric car to market.

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#106

Post by debacle » Tue, Feb 27, 2024, 7:38 PM UTC

Many companies are shifting away from electric cars right now. As someone who doesn't pay much attention to the industry, is it about capital costs, battery material shortages, consumer behavior, loss of subsidies, general competition, etc? It feels like we made a lot of promises about a shift to "all electric" in certain places by 2030 and I see those promises being rolled back or weakened.

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#107

Post by LordDragonfang » Tue, Feb 27, 2024, 7:39 PM UTC

huytersd wrote: post #12

riddlemethat wrote: post #3

This is a smart move. Apple seems so far behind in generative AI it's making Google look innovative.

Weird thing to say about the company that will be the definitive LLM once Pro 1.5 is available with its million tokens. I can’t even imagine what ultra 1.5 will bring.

As a former google fanboy (and current genAI enthusiast that keeps being disappointed at all the models that claim to rival gpt4 and then don't even beat gpt3.5), I'll believe it when I see it.

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#108

Post by internetter » Tue, Feb 27, 2024, 7:39 PM UTC

stevev wrote: post #90

MisterPea wrote: post #10

Cook's best trait is being reactive very well. What he lacks in the Jobs "magic", he has in the ability to react to industry incredibly well and do better than most. I have little doubt Apple is going to be a major player in AI, especially in the non-Nvidia hardware space after playing around with MLX

I disagree. They had a leading edge with Siri but failed to invest in AI over a car. This move is just correcting a vital mistake in time past. They’re playing catch up.

OP said reactive, not anticipative. You are both in agreement.

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#109

Post by zer00eyz » Tue, Feb 27, 2024, 7:39 PM UTC

filmgirlcw wrote: post #18

Good. This was an idea that never made any sense to me. It’s high overhead/low-margin and requires infrastructure, sales and after-sales support that just aren’t aligned with how Apple does business. It’s one thing to create a new car company (even tho those attempts usually fail), it’s another to purposefully take it on as a business line when your existing business groups prints money and have 40%+ margins. Especia…

>>> Good. This was an idea that never made any sense to me. It’s high overhead/low-margin and requires infrastructure, sales and after-sales support that just aren’t aligned with how Apple does business.

Apple, in a twist of fate, is in the same position that AT&T was when it started Bell Labs, and in the same place as Xerox was when it started Parc.

The history of Parc and Apple is well known, the early history of unix being a thrown out the car window by AT&T at speed to avoid more anti trust issues is often forgotten. Apples products are built on legacies. "Resting on the shoulders of giants" is probably true in this case.

Apple is now an AT&T, its now a Xerox, it is now the company that can just do R&D for the sake of doing it (as can Google and a lesser degree MS). Apple, unlike google, knows how to make a consumer product, and one of these moonshots could make it even bigger...

I wonder if in 20 years something from apples car project changes the industry in a way we never expected. Time will only tell.

Re: Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

#110

Post by nradov » Tue, Feb 27, 2024, 7:39 PM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #65

filmgirlcw wrote: post #18

Good. This was an idea that never made any sense to me. It’s high overhead/low-margin and requires infrastructure, sales and after-sales support that just aren’t aligned with how Apple does business. It’s one thing to create a new car company (even tho those attempts usually fail), it’s another to purposefully take it on as a business line when your existing business groups prints money and have 40%+ margins. Especia…

If you look at the market cap of Ferrari, it's not crazy why Apple was considering this. They could maybe sell 4k cars a year and increase their market cap by $100B (~3.5%). You could potentially have some shop hand build them and not have crazy cap-ex or infrastructure. I don't think Apple was planning to take on Tesla in the mass market - that would've been a pretty strange move, I agree.

Ferrari's value is driven more by merchandising than by car sales. Even if a hypothetical Apple car did well, that wouldn't drive billions in sales of Apple branded jackets, hats, luggage, shot glasses, etc.