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Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

bloomberg.com

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

#131

Post by mortenjorck »

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…

I think this made a lot of sense circa 2011 when it looked like autonomous vehicles were about to rapidly reshape the world around us.

While it may yet happen, the "about to" part of course turned out wrong. There was no AV revolution in the late 2010s, and Apple reportedly pivoting away from self-driving a couple of years ago was probably the actual death knell for the project.

Apple making an AV in the middle of the self-driving revolution makes sense; Apple making just a nice EV in a very crowded market does not.

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

#132

Post by [deleted] »

modeless wrote: post #91

Tesla is already the Apple of cars. Designed in California. Capacitive touchscreen instead of buttons. Vertical integration. Minimalist hardware design. Focus on software. Over the air updates. Custom SoC. When Apple did all this in phones it was unique. There was no Tesla of phones. But there is a Tesla of cars and it's tough to imagine what unique thing Apple could bring to the market.

[deleted]

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

#135

Post by summerlight »

This decision makes sense. Apple failed to establish a good relationship with the existing car makers and they couldn't even begin their very first manufacturing process over 10 years. Which means even if Apple gets a magic wand to bring all the technologies that it needs, it would take another decade to ramp up the business.

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

#136

Post by bombcar »

modeless wrote: post #91

Tesla is already the Apple of cars. Designed in California. Capacitive touchscreen instead of buttons. Vertical integration. Minimalist hardware design. Focus on software. Over the air updates. Custom SoC. When Apple did all this in phones it was unique. There was no Tesla of phones. But there is a Tesla of cars and it's tough to imagine what unique thing Apple could bring to the market.

Ten years ago Apple buying TSLA would have been something that could have happened.

Today, not so much.

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

#137

Post by nradov »

closewith wrote: post #82
MBCook wrote: post #19

I was always rather puzzled by the car. I can’t see them ever competing even with the small makers like Jaguar or Polestar or Lamborghini. They’re certainly not going to take on Ford or Mazda or Honda. The idea of making the infotainment guts is interesting but I can’t see any carmaker giving up that much control. If they don’t like CarPlay they’d never like full Apple infotainment. Sure Apple could do ADAS stuff, bu…

Car manufacturers must be coming around on CarPlay. I made a purchasing decision largely because one of the car suitable cars supported wireless CarPlay.

Tesla has never supported Apple CarPlay and their sales keep rising. GM recently dropped CarPlay from new models so we'll see how that impacts sales.

https://www.motortrend.com/news/general-motors-removing-appl...

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

#140

Post by jejeyyy77 »

MBCook wrote: post #19

I was always rather puzzled by the car. I can’t see them ever competing even with the small makers like Jaguar or Polestar or Lamborghini. They’re certainly not going to take on Ford or Mazda or Honda. The idea of making the infotainment guts is interesting but I can’t see any carmaker giving up that much control. If they don’t like CarPlay they’d never like full Apple infotainment. Sure Apple could do ADAS stuff, bu…

yep, Tesla has won the war.
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