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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

#501

Post by MetaWhirledPeas »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #486
MetaWhirledPeas wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Why were you puzzled? What is so impossible about making a car from scratch, then making money on it? I don't own any Apple products, but I know they could do it. Yes it's difficult, but a lot of the difficulty comes…

Because just being able to do it isn't the point. The real question is whether or not it's a good use of the cash they have available. OP is saying that it doesn't make good business sense for Apple to do this, not that it's impossible for them to pull it off.

I can't help but think of Sears and all their decisions that probably made "good business sense".

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

#502

Post by theturtletalks »

dartos wrote: post #493
theturtletalks wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is still waiting it out until most of the existing EV issues are resolved. Then, they can swoop in and leverage their walled garden to get buyers/users. They'll also be different than Ford, Mazda, Honda, etc since I don't think they will try to sell their cars. It'll be a subscription fee and Apple will own the car. All this news tells me is that Apple is putting EV in the back burner since users are still not…

That’s some Apple fan boy cope.

Nope, just seen it in action over and over.

No one thought they would do VR and they did.

No one thought they would compete with Netflix and their movies are winning awards now.

No one thought they would cannibalize the iPod with a phone and they did.

The state of US tech companies is that they will also go into new markets. When Netflix came out, did you really think Amazon and Apple would get into that market? To Apple, cars are an untapped sector they'll want to tackle when their existing sectors are saturated.

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

#503

Post by astrodust »

somedude895 wrote: post #491
wolverine876 wrote: post #474

I hope it's not an overreaction to the current reactionary anti-ESG trend. We do need electric cars; they are the future.

Do we need Apple specifically to make an electric car?

This is not the question Apple is trying to answer.

If you're trying to expand the market of a company with such a broad reach already there aren't many markets big enough to move the needle on revenue. Real-estate, food, fashion and automotive are the only ones really significant enough to tackle, and of those, automotive isn't an unreasonable one to explore.

Unless you want a literal Apple Home.

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

#504

Post by insane_dreamer »

tr_user wrote: post #480
wolverine876 wrote: post #474

I hope it's not an overreaction to the current reactionary anti-ESG trend. We do need electric cars; they are the future.

Future of what? Reliable mass public transport is the best option for a sustainable future. We don't need car centric suburbia but with heavier and more expensive cars.

except that mass public transportation is never going to happen on the needed scale in the US; electric cars is the next best thing and much preferable to the current status quo

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

#505

Post by astrodust »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #442
checker659 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish they'd put a huge FPGA on every device.

You're not going to like the battery lif

I'm assuming your phone died before finishing this comment, thus proving your point.

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

#506

Post by coldtea »

evan_ wrote: post #490

If I were running a successful company I would stay as far away from selling cars as possible- it can't imagine how bad it is for PR (not to mention your psyche) to suddenly have "Family killed by drunk driver" headlines with a giant color picture of your flagship product, blood-stained and mangled below it.

That's a strange thought.

Neither the name or logo of famous car brands got associated or tarnished by tens of thousands killed every year...

Even when some of them ocassionally made a specific "death trap" model or production run, that's simply not how people thinks of them.

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

#507

Post by russellbeattie »

This is the problem with Tim Cook. He was able to execute on the ideas that Steve Jobs had about the future of computing, but has no real vision of his own. For the past decade he's made all the right decisions about how to best expand personal technology and introduced a couple new products like the Apple Watch and AirPods. But those are just extensions of the same basic idea.

But in terms of the future? He's just been chasing trends. The VR headset is a copy of a fad that peaked a few years ago. The car project is the same - way outside Apple's core competency and doomed from the start. It probably started simply because Cook drives a Tesla and wanted an Apple version. Just like the push to make the iPad a replacement for the Mac - it's all he normally uses, so that's what he thought was important.

Apple completely dropped the lead they had with Siri. They should have had a massive generative AI project for the past 5 years.

It's not a secret that Cook isn't a visionary, he's the type of guy who implements the vision of others. I think over the next decade we're going to start seeing Apple start to pay the price for that deficiency.

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

#508

Post by throwitaway222 »

evan_ wrote: post #490

If I were running a successful company I would stay as far away from selling cars as possible- it can't imagine how bad it is for PR (not to mention your psyche) to suddenly have "Family killed by drunk driver" headlines with a giant color picture of your flagship product, blood-stained and mangled below it.

I mean, Toyota, Ford, Dodge, Honda, Hondai, Tesla, the list goes on... have all had that picture already, and they seem to be doing fine?

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

#509

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

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…

> I can’t see them ever competing even with the small makers like Jaguar or Polestar or Lamborghini.

Jaguar is owned by Tata motors, Polestar is a Volvo subsidiary, Lamborghini's ownership is Audi -> Volkswagen, so not really small makers in any sense.

But generally I agree, I think Apple making the full car is an odd choice. I think so much of their DNA, though, is "hardware and software working in concert together", and that's probably what they thought this was a good idea to begin with.

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

#510

Post by cagenut »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #504
tr_user wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Future of what? Reliable mass public transport is the best option for a sustainable future. We don't need car centric suburbia but with heavier and more expensive cars.

except that mass public transportation is never going to happen on the needed scale in the US; electric cars is the next best thing and much preferable to the current status quo

you don't even need to agree on 'never' as 'not in the next 25 years' and 'never' both look the same for the timeframe we have to decarbonize personal transportation.

whether we have a world of 3 billion cars (doubling) or a world of 750 million cars (halving) in 2050, they all need to be electric.

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