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Apple Gears Up to Challenge Tesla in Electric Cars

wsj.com

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Re: Apple Gears Up to Challenge Tesla in Electric Cars

#101

Post by snowwrestler »

foobarian wrote: post #94
Geee wrote: post #14

It's probably 10 years off, but I bet it will be a self-driving one. That isn't a car anymore, but a moving computer, which makes it a natural fit for Apple.

I'm skeptical. Self-driving systems are extremely software heavy, and Apple is not a software house. It just doesn't make sense.

Apple is not a software house? They produce two OS's with development tooling and applications, they run some of the largest online services on the Internet, and they just released their own new programming language. What would a software house look like?

Re: Apple Gears Up to Challenge Tesla in Electric Cars

#102

Post by danfinlay »

dhagz wrote: post #99
TulliusCicero wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk mentioned the other day that Apple frequently tries to poach Tesla employees, but hasn't been very successful.

Yeah, isn't it the other way around? I remember reading somewhere that Tesla poaches a good number of employees from Apple.

No, these are compatible statements. They both try to poach, and Tesla can be having more luck at it.

Re: Apple Gears Up to Challenge Tesla in Electric Cars

#103

Post by dougabug »

r00fus wrote: post #47

On one hand, Apple is clearly not in their wheelhouse when it comes to vehicles - even Google has more experience than them. On the other hand, I would kill for an electric (or even hybrid) minivan. The Model-S with 2 extra seats just isn't enough room. On the gripping hand, look at how Apple played the industry and pundits on sapphire. Where is WSJ getting their info - they didn't even describe their sources.

They weren't in their wheelhouse when they went into phones, either.

Re: Apple Gears Up to Challenge Tesla in Electric Cars

#105

Post by dougabug »

ForHackernews wrote: post #52
click170 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who would you rather buy from though? The innovator, or the imitator? Price may be the differentiating factor, but I think most ppl would choose the innovator.

Are you kidding me? Almost Apple's entire product line has been very polished, stylish imitations (Xerox Alto -> Apple PC, Diamond Rio -> iPod, Blackberry -> iPhone, Microsoft Tablet PC -> iPad) with some incremental improvements, and they've been extremely popular. I think history has shown that most people will choose the imitator, if the imitation is a good one.

The Mac was not an imitation Alto. Xerox tried and failed subsequently to commercialize the Alto. The iPod was not an imitation Diamond Rio; the iPod could fit in your pocket and hold most people's entire music collection, rather than a few dozen songs. IPhones are not Blackberries; the latter were black & white email centric keyboard centric non-touch business centric devices with modest compute and consumer media features and no comparable app & music ecosystem. iPads are not Microsoft Tablet PC's. Microsoft has launched generations of tablets going back to the late 80's/early 90's, none of which were very successful.

Re: Apple Gears Up to Challenge Tesla in Electric Cars

#106

Post by aerovistae »

leereeves wrote: post #67
cgusto wrote: post #63

Wow, this rumor is out of control. I guarantee they are not working on a complete vehicle. Probably battery systems and some type of autonomous control, if anything. I think this is just a moonshot program to attract engineering talent.

That's what I thought at first too, but as I thought about it, I began to wonder. They certainly have the chutzpah to try, and they have an ocean of money to spend overseas. A longshot bet on building another trillion dollar product might be preferable to paying corporate and personal income tax on dividends.

No, I totally agree with cgusto. Building a vehicle manufacturing base is a mammoth undertaking. Tesla's been at it for 12 years and is only now putting out 35,000 cars a year. It really doesn't make that much difference how much money you start off with; that was never Tesla's obstacle. Elon has said as much on more than one occasion, that they're spending money as fast as they can and the only real limit is the amount of work that can feasibly be done per unit time.

Apple may have almost $200 billion but where would they get the batteries, to focus on just one aspect of it? Tesla found there literally wasn't enough battery supply and decided to build the largest battery factory in the world from scratch to provide what they needed, and it's been in planning for years and won't be ready for a few years to come. And again, money isn't the blocking issue. It would be laughable to suggest that Apple could just conjure up a comparable factory out of nowhere....it would take them just as long.

And given their penchant for overseas labor, it would take even longer. Don't even get me started on that. It's like Elon has said: importing phones in bulk is one thing; importing cars or large heavy things is wholly another. They would really have to do it in the US, which could hardly be done in secrecy. Car manufacturing plants tend to be large and obvious.

My point: maybe they'll get into it, but it won't come out of nowhere and it will certainly take a LOT of time regardless of their bank account. Tesla will be many years ahead of them for the long-term foreseeable future.

Re: Apple Gears Up to Challenge Tesla in Electric Cars

#108

Post by ams6110 »

melling wrote: post #79

I tried to make this point a couple of weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8962872 Basically, Apple, Google, and Microsoft have so much money, they could take on a huge problem and "invent" the future.

1997-2000 showed us that having a lot of money is no guarantee you'll build something that anyone wants to use (or at least, that they want to pay for).

Re: Apple Gears Up to Challenge Tesla in Electric Cars

#109

Post by millstone »

FireBeyond wrote: post #38
hmottestad wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only domain expertise they had on phones was the itunes phone with motorola. And then they launched the iphone. Same goes for the ipod. Only thing they had expertise in was computers. And with computers becoming extremely important for cars, they might just have a chance. Just as much as google, and they don't have any particular domain knowledge either (ie. they have never sold a car before).

Computers aren't important for cars, software is. And sadly, much as I am invested in the Apple ecosystem, Apple's software QC has gone downhill. Yosemite and iOS 8 both suffer many glaring, obvious bugs that have been present since the beta/DPs with no sign of fixes. That leads to recalls and lawsuits with cars.

It's safe to assume that the safety-critical software in any iCar will be held to a much higher standard than OS X or iOS.

Re: Apple Gears Up to Challenge Tesla in Electric Cars

#110

Post by ams6110 »

snowwrestler wrote: post #101
foobarian wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm skeptical. Self-driving systems are extremely software heavy, and Apple is not a software house. It just doesn't make sense.

Apple is not a software house? They produce two OS's with development tooling and applications, they run some of the largest online services on the Internet, and they just released their own new programming language. What would a software house look like?

Software for a self-driving car has to be built to a standard that's entirely different from anything they've had to build to before. Lives are at stake.
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