Never make eye contact with other drivers, because if they know you see them, they will not let you switch lanes. You have to pretend you don't see them in your blind spot. Just change lanes without signaling and make them hit the brakes.
Exactly how we drive here on the Autobahn. Only we do it at over 200km/h.
btt:
Even if Apple would aim at the upper class part of the market, the margins would be very thin compared to their current business.
For comparison, Daimler has an operating margin of ca. 8%, BMW 10.5%, Ford 4%, VW 4.5%, Toyota 8.5%, and GM - don't ask!
So analysts really think Apple will make big investments (and you need big investments in the car industry) in a business where the best have an operating margin that isn't even a third of Apple's?
An actual Apple Car, a vehicle made by Apple, is bullshit. This post over at VW Vortex sums it up nicely:
[QUOTE]I don't see this happening, at least not in the way that a lot of tech commentators are envisioning it. What's the benefit to Apple to get into the car business? It's low-margin, it's mind-bogglingly expensive to break into, it involves the acquisition of technology and expertise that's far outside their ecosystem, and it doesn't build logically on any of their core competencies and products. Think about it: this is not how Apple operates. Mac gave rise to iPod, which let you take your music with you. iPod gave rise to iPhone, which built connectivity into the iPod concept. iPhone gave rise to iPad, the larger but still portable form factor, and Apple Watch, which is tethered to your phone and shares processing responsibilities with it. iPhone is also the scaffolding they're hanging Apple Pay, HomeKit (their "Internet of Things" platform), Continuity (pretty innovative variable-bandwith BT/WiFi scaling and connectivity) and iCloud on. What Apple does is build, evolutionarily and logically, on their existing products - either their own and/or those in existing markets that currently are served by very immature devices.
What I can see is a really big push into automotive telematics - a car-based mobile system that's deeply integrated into mobile devices, iCloud, HomeKit. It's an evolutionary leap, it's an established market but it has a lot of potential, and current stabs at integrated car systems blow goats. Clunky interfaces, finicky bluetooth setup, laggy processing speed, minimal connectivity with other devices and services. If MyFordTouch and CUE and MMI are the Palm Treo and Creative Nomad of car telematics, Apple is very well positioned with its current technology to disrupt the hell out of that market. iOS in the Car is their first tentative step into that, but I think it's far more indicative of the actual direction they're set up to go towards. Automotive telematics are the logical, evolutionary next step, because if my Mac, my iPad, my iPhone, my Apple TV, and my thermostat can all talk to each other, but not to my car....boom. Growth market.
Cars? Not a growth market. Leave cars to the companies that build cars. They are legion. Why would Apple be content with building one more car when they could be in EVERY car? I'd bet they're working on deep integration with OEM telematics, I'd bet they're working on automotive OEM partnerships, I'd bet they're working on protocols to use the in-car displays like external monitors, I'd bet they're looking at ways to use your phone to unlock the car and display directions to your next appointment, but they're not putting an apple in the middle of a grille.[/QUOTE]
"Even though in the US a majority of people, including Republicans, agree that greenhouse gases and climate change have to be tackled by the government."
Not accurate. The government is often a blunt instrument wielded by blunt instruments.
I understand when you say that government is not the best instrument to fix global warming. But nothing will be done without government policy first. Of course it has to be smart policy to be effective. And believe it or not, government stumbles into effective policy once in a while.
I understand when you say that government is not the best instrument to fix global warming. But nothing will be done without government policy first. Of course it has to be smart policy to be effective. And believe it or not, government stumbles into effective policy once in a while.
It's not the "best" instrument, it's the ONLY instrument.
Tragedy of the Commons anyone? My externalizing costs by poisoning my factories neighbors can theoretically be corrected by market forces through liability suits (though the collateral damage until the correction takes place can be horrific, see Minamata Bay*), something as amorphous as global warming doesn't have that direct causality going for it. Just an ever increasing data point on the Keeling Curve...
Precisely. If you look at autonomous cars as "controlled transportation" we already have that -- it's called mass transit. Buses. Taxis. Subways. Trains. Swimming pools. Movie stars. (Oops, got off topic there for a second). I don't need a self-driving car in a city, I can use mass transit; and if I am going further afield, I would rather control the car myself.
This is a titanic money suck. I would rather see Apple do what they do best -- provide the OS for an advanced automobile such as a Tesla with things like voice recognition, hyper-accurate maps, and crowd-sourced real-time traffic/weather conditions. Integrate it with their devices so I can listen to my music and order pizza on the way and I am a happy camper; I can do the general driving, and actually like to, thanks.
The basic things that need to happen to take automobiles to the next level/generation are not parlor tricks like autonomous driving. They are things like batteries or supercapacitors that are the functional equivalent of a tank of gasoline (in terms of distance and recharge time) and the infrastructure to support that. Apple does not do those things.
1% of the phone market? I think thats a bit of a stretch for a first time phone maker… I am an Apple fan but that is a ridiculous number.... Think of all the different models and phone makers out there...
Oh giving me a friken break. Wall Street was CRUSHING Apple in early 2013. Most of the analysist dropped their price targets to $500 or less.
Even David Tepler said he sold a ton of Apple stock in 2013 because they didn't come out with a bigger phone like Samsung.
You must have been living in a cave if you did not hear Wall Street say Apple was getting hurt by Samsung.
Yep. An article every day was published to the effect that Apple was "finished" or "doomed", and that Samsung was the "next Apple". Pretty much every analyst was drooling over and heaping praise on Samsung, while throwing Apple under the bus. $500 targets? I remember $200 targets. It's revisionist history horse-shit to pretend that Wall Street didn't turn on Apple in a major way, and had zero optimism in the company. The Samsung worship was frankly nauseating, as was the fact that all these crystal ball readers could not see 2 feet beyond their own noses, and could not understand that Samsung's success was almost entirely based on marketing and "huge phones", had no solid foundation so to speak, and could easily evaporate. And, it did.
Oh giving me a friken break. Wall Street was CRUSHING Apple in early 2013. Most of the analysist dropped their price targets to $500 or less.
Even David Tepler said he sold a ton of Apple stock in 2013 because they didn't come out with a bigger phone like Samsung.
You must have been living in a cave if you did not hear Wall Street say Apple was getting hurt by Samsung.
Yep. An article every day was published to the effect that Apple was "finished" or "doomed", and that Samsung was the "next Apple". Pretty much every analyst was drooling over and heaping praise on Samsung, while throwing Apple under the bus. $500 targets? I remember $200 targets. It's revisionist history horse-shit to pretend that Wall Street didn't turn on Apple in a major way, and had zero optimism in the company. The Samsung worship was frankly nauseating, as was the fact that all these crystal ball readers could not see 2 feet beyond their own noses, and could not understand that Samsung's success was almost entirely based on marketing and "huge phones", had no solid foundation so to speak, and could easily evaporate. And, it did.
iDash is far more likely. I can see Apple making car parts - they are great at making human/machine interfaces. I bought a truck years ago: the steering wheel blocked the speedometer from view.
A whole car is very unlikely IMHO.
I can also see Apple getting involved in home energy solutions. Things like inverters you can plug into an outlet for solar panels. Or a natural gas fuel cell. Pretty utilitarian stuff though - nothing Jony would have much interest in.
iDash is far more likely. I can see Apple making car parts - they are great at making human/machine interfaces. I bought a truck years ago: the steering wheel blocked the speedometer from view.
A whole car is very unlikely IMHO.
I can also see Apple getting involved in home energy solutions. Things like inverters you can plug into an outlet for solar panels. Or a natural gas fuel cell. Pretty utilitarian stuff though - nothing Jony would have much interest in.
iDash is far more likely. I can see Apple making car parts - they are great at making human/machine interfaces. I bought a truck years ago: the steering wheel blocked the speedometer from view.
A whole car is very unlikely IMHO.
I can also see Apple getting involved in home energy solutions. Things like inverters you can plug into an outlet for solar panels. Or a natural gas fuel cell. Pretty utilitarian stuff though - nothing Jony would have much interest in.
That's exactly what my post from above was getting at. An entire car makes no sense from Apple's perspective. But to have a piece of Apple tech in EVERY car (or nearly every car) vastly expands its reach.
how to accelerate carplay integraton, how to jump start the slowness of the auto industry
i'd love to have an apple store have installers for my carplay by apple
Thanks for the links. This is exactly the line of reasoning I had when these flurries of 'iCar" rumours bloomed up last week. While it is true that Apple "could be" working on a revolutionary car (electric & autonomous driving), because Apple has the financial resources to do so, it would be an extreme right-hand-turn for the company's strategy. Apple has, in the post-Steve-return era, been very consistent in expanding its ecosystem and base. Each new device & service is building well upon that base. Each device adds value to it, and each device targets pretty much a global market (within their higher end market price) with only minor changes in areas like wireless connectivity. Going for the dashboard is reasonably in-line with that, although the difference is it requires partnerships (which we see Apple doing more of with Homekit, Healthkit, and CarPlay already).
For those that believe Apple is likely working on a car simply because of the "iPhone" example, I believe they are missing the details. Yes, Apple was new to the mobile phone space, but as has been discussed many times, the iPhone was really a mobile computer that also made phone calls. Apple could see that this was the direction of computing and portable entertainment, and thus needed to lead there.
The car market requires a very large investment to break into, has low margins overall, and with an electric vehicle, would be a niche for many many years. Look at Tesla - which I think many would indicate took the route that is closest to what Apple "would do if they went after this market" - after many years, they are selling 10k's of vehicles, burned through a ton of money, and are facing numerous challenges.
I think that building a car is HUGELY more complex than building a computer or phone. There are just so many more decisions to be made, and within a practical time frame. With a computer, even apple relies on others to build to specification. A lot of the parts in most computers are off-the-shelf (think wires, connectors, interfaces, industry accepted design specs, fasteners, fans, etc.) Most car manufacturers rely on some suppliers to help design and build their cars, but a lot of stuff is designed and built in-house.
But think of the complexities of building a car, and moreover, a car sales and service network. Huge investments.
Consider the glove box liner in your car.
Here are some of the considerations.
Design the shape.
Engineer the shape.
Design/engineer the tooling that will produce the part in volume.
Design the part to a budget.
Send out engineering information potential suppliers.
Vet the suppliers.
Reengineer the shape because the car may or may not have air conditioning, may or may not have a glove box mounted CD player.
Engineer to account for the possibility someone will spill a Coke in the glovebox.
Engineer it to account for how the vehicle is assembled.
Engineer it to make sure it does not fall apart after 20 years of use.
Engineer it to stand up to temperatures from -40 to +140 degrees.
Engineer the fasteners.
Reengineer new fasteners so they don't rust.
Reengineer the mounts for the fasteners.
Reengineer because some mook designed the light fixture that goes in the box wrong.
Reengineer the box material because the first ones cracked or otherwise failed.
Reengineer it so that the material can be dyed any of four colors.
Reengineer it so that it can be removed without breaking by some monkey at the dealership if necessary to get to components behind it.
Reengineer to make sure the edges don't cut fingers.
Engineer to make sure the fuzzy lining does not rub off on granny's white gloves.
Reengineer to make sure it can support the weight of two S&W 9mm pistols.
Reengineer to make certain nothing bad happens if baby chews on the box.
Reengineer to make sure that in a collision it does not cause unexpected injuries.
Reengineer to make sure it is fireproof.
Reengineer the material because the first ones gave off a funny smell.
Engineer, reengineer, reengineer.
Now, lets consider the dash vents….
It's a miracle that any cars are built, much less good ones.
While I would like to see Apple take a swing at it, wow. What a project!
I think that building a car is HUGELY more complex than building a computer or phone. There are just so many more decisions to be made, and within a practical time frame. With a computer, even apple relies on others to build to specification. A lot of the parts in most computers are off-the-shelf (think wires, connectors, interfaces, industry accepted design specs, fasteners, fans, etc.) Most car manufacturers rely on some suppliers to help design and build their cars, but a lot of stuff is designed and built in-house.
But think of the complexities of building a car, and moreover, a car sales and service network. Huge investments.
Consider the glove box liner in your car.
Here are some of the considerations.
Design the shape.
Engineer the shape.
Design/engineer the tooling that will produce the part in volume.
Design the part to a budget.
Send out engineering information potential suppliers.
Vet the suppliers.
Reengineer the shape because the car may or may not have air conditioning, may or may not have a glove box mounted CD player.
Engineer to account for the possibility someone will spill a Coke in the glovebox.
Engineer it to account for how the vehicle is assembled.
Engineer it to make sure it does not fall apart after 20 years of use.
Engineer it to stand up to temperatures from -40 to +140 degrees.
Engineer the fasteners.
Reengineer new fasteners so they don't rust.
Reengineer the mounts for the fasteners.
Reengineer because some mook designed the light fixture that goes in the box wrong.
Reengineer the box material because the first ones cracked or otherwise failed.
Reengineer it so that the material can be dyed any of four colors.
Reengineer it so that it can be removed without breaking by some monkey at the dealership if necessary to get to components behind it.
Reengineer to make sure the edges don't cut fingers.
Engineer to make sure the fuzzy lining does not rub off on granny's white gloves.
Reengineer to make sure it can support the weight of two S&W 9mm pistols.
Reengineer to make certain nothing bad happens if baby chews on the box.
Reengineer to make sure that in a collision it does not cause unexpected injuries.
Reengineer to make sure it is fireproof.
Reengineer the material because the first ones gave off a funny smell.
Engineer, reengineer, reengineer.
Now, lets consider the dash vents….
It's a miracle that any cars are built, much less good ones.
While I would like to see Apple take a swing at it, wow. What a project!
Roger Penske reportedly came this close to starting up a continuation of the Saturn line, he intended to contract out the actual manufacture but GM would not bridge the gap between when he could get a third party online to produce "his" cars and when they wanted to stop dealing with the Saturn line. Penske wasn't going to re-invent the glove box, he'd contract that out to people who already had that expertise. I expect Apple would do the same; with the electronics systems being the "Apple" part., the glovebox? Notsomuch.
Comments
Never make eye contact with other drivers, because if they know you see them, they will not let you switch lanes. You have to pretend you don't see them in your blind spot. Just change lanes without signaling and make them hit the brakes.
Exactly how we drive here on the Autobahn. Only we do it at over 200km/h.
btt:
Even if Apple would aim at the upper class part of the market, the margins would be very thin compared to their current business.
For comparison, Daimler has an operating margin of ca. 8%, BMW 10.5%, Ford 4%, VW 4.5%, Toyota 8.5%, and GM - don't ask!
So analysts really think Apple will make big investments (and you need big investments in the car industry) in a business where the best have an operating margin that isn't even a third of Apple's?
[QUOTE]I don't see this happening, at least not in the way that a lot of tech commentators are envisioning it. What's the benefit to Apple to get into the car business? It's low-margin, it's mind-bogglingly expensive to break into, it involves the acquisition of technology and expertise that's far outside their ecosystem, and it doesn't build logically on any of their core competencies and products. Think about it: this is not how Apple operates. Mac gave rise to iPod, which let you take your music with you. iPod gave rise to iPhone, which built connectivity into the iPod concept. iPhone gave rise to iPad, the larger but still portable form factor, and Apple Watch, which is tethered to your phone and shares processing responsibilities with it. iPhone is also the scaffolding they're hanging Apple Pay, HomeKit (their "Internet of Things" platform), Continuity (pretty innovative variable-bandwith BT/WiFi scaling and connectivity) and iCloud on. What Apple does is build, evolutionarily and logically, on their existing products - either their own and/or those in existing markets that currently are served by very immature devices.
What I can see is a really big push into automotive telematics - a car-based mobile system that's deeply integrated into mobile devices, iCloud, HomeKit. It's an evolutionary leap, it's an established market but it has a lot of potential, and current stabs at integrated car systems blow goats. Clunky interfaces, finicky bluetooth setup, laggy processing speed, minimal connectivity with other devices and services. If MyFordTouch and CUE and MMI are the Palm Treo and Creative Nomad of car telematics, Apple is very well positioned with its current technology to disrupt the hell out of that market. iOS in the Car is their first tentative step into that, but I think it's far more indicative of the actual direction they're set up to go towards. Automotive telematics are the logical, evolutionary next step, because if my Mac, my iPad, my iPhone, my Apple TV, and my thermostat can all talk to each other, but not to my car....boom. Growth market.
Cars? Not a growth market. Leave cars to the companies that build cars. They are legion. Why would Apple be content with building one more car when they could be in EVERY car? I'd bet they're working on deep integration with OEM telematics, I'd bet they're working on automotive OEM partnerships, I'd bet they're working on protocols to use the in-car displays like external monitors, I'd bet they're looking at ways to use your phone to unlock the car and display directions to your next appointment, but they're not putting an apple in the middle of a grille.[/QUOTE]
http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?p=87189708#post87189708
An actual Apple Car, a vehicle made by Apple, is bullshit. This post over at VW Vortex sums it up nicely:
http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?p=87189708#post87189708
If I could get rid of my car's current control system in favor of one developed by Apple, I'd do that in a heartbeat.
God, I wish Gene would just shut up.
He always thinks that he's 'helping'. But he's not; he's just not.
"Even though in the US a majority of people, including Republicans, agree that greenhouse gases and climate change have to be tackled by the government."
Not accurate. The government is often a blunt instrument wielded by blunt instruments.
I understand when you say that government is not the best instrument to fix global warming. But nothing will be done without government policy first. Of course it has to be smart policy to be effective. And believe it or not, government stumbles into effective policy once in a while.
I understand when you say that government is not the best instrument to fix global warming. But nothing will be done without government policy first. Of course it has to be smart policy to be effective. And believe it or not, government stumbles into effective policy once in a while.
It's not the "best" instrument, it's the ONLY instrument.
Tragedy of the Commons anyone? My externalizing costs by poisoning my factories neighbors can theoretically be corrected by market forces through liability suits (though the collateral damage until the correction takes place can be horrific, see Minamata Bay*), something as amorphous as global warming doesn't have that direct causality going for it. Just an ever increasing data point on the Keeling Curve...
http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&ALID=2TYRYDDWZXTR
my thought exactly
how to accelerate carplay integraton, how to jump start the slowness of the auto industry
i'd love to have an apple store have installers for my carplay by apple
Its a matter of demand, and public cooperation.
Precisely. If you look at autonomous cars as "controlled transportation" we already have that -- it's called mass transit. Buses. Taxis. Subways. Trains. Swimming pools. Movie stars. (Oops, got off topic there for a second). I don't need a self-driving car in a city, I can use mass transit; and if I am going further afield, I would rather control the car myself.
This is a titanic money suck. I would rather see Apple do what they do best -- provide the OS for an advanced automobile such as a Tesla with things like voice recognition, hyper-accurate maps, and crowd-sourced real-time traffic/weather conditions. Integrate it with their devices so I can listen to my music and order pizza on the way and I am a happy camper; I can do the general driving, and actually like to, thanks.
The basic things that need to happen to take automobiles to the next level/generation are not parlor tricks like autonomous driving. They are things like batteries or supercapacitors that are the functional equivalent of a tank of gasoline (in terms of distance and recharge time) and the infrastructure to support that. Apple does not do those things.
Except iPhone’s already a $50 billion market, so…
You, 2007.
So you own a crystal ball now?
I mean seriously. Some of you act like you are some demi-god that can foretell the future.
This... coming from you!... hahahahahahahahahaha
Oh giving me a friken break. Wall Street was CRUSHING Apple in early 2013. Most of the analysist dropped their price targets to $500 or less.
Even David Tepler said he sold a ton of Apple stock in 2013 because they didn't come out with a bigger phone like Samsung.
You must have been living in a cave if you did not hear Wall Street say Apple was getting hurt by Samsung.
Yep. An article every day was published to the effect that Apple was "finished" or "doomed", and that Samsung was the "next Apple". Pretty much every analyst was drooling over and heaping praise on Samsung, while throwing Apple under the bus. $500 targets? I remember $200 targets. It's revisionist history horse-shit to pretend that Wall Street didn't turn on Apple in a major way, and had zero optimism in the company. The Samsung worship was frankly nauseating, as was the fact that all these crystal ball readers could not see 2 feet beyond their own noses, and could not understand that Samsung's success was almost entirely based on marketing and "huge phones", had no solid foundation so to speak, and could easily evaporate. And, it did.
Oh giving me a friken break. Wall Street was CRUSHING Apple in early 2013. Most of the analysist dropped their price targets to $500 or less.
Even David Tepler said he sold a ton of Apple stock in 2013 because they didn't come out with a bigger phone like Samsung.
You must have been living in a cave if you did not hear Wall Street say Apple was getting hurt by Samsung.
Yep. An article every day was published to the effect that Apple was "finished" or "doomed", and that Samsung was the "next Apple". Pretty much every analyst was drooling over and heaping praise on Samsung, while throwing Apple under the bus. $500 targets? I remember $200 targets. It's revisionist history horse-shit to pretend that Wall Street didn't turn on Apple in a major way, and had zero optimism in the company. The Samsung worship was frankly nauseating, as was the fact that all these crystal ball readers could not see 2 feet beyond their own noses, and could not understand that Samsung's success was almost entirely based on marketing and "huge phones", had no solid foundation so to speak, and could easily evaporate. And, it did.
Yep.
Samsung down. Google next.
This is interesting:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/02/16/apple-wants-to-own-the-dashboard/23519593/
iDash is far more likely. I can see Apple making car parts - they are great at making human/machine interfaces. I bought a truck years ago: the steering wheel blocked the speedometer from view.
A whole car is very unlikely IMHO.
I can also see Apple getting involved in home energy solutions. Things like inverters you can plug into an outlet for solar panels. Or a natural gas fuel cell. Pretty utilitarian stuff though - nothing Jony would have much interest in.
iDash! Yawn. iBored.
This is interesting:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/02/16/apple-wants-to-own-the-dashboard/23519593/
iDash is far more likely. I can see Apple making car parts - they are great at making human/machine interfaces. I bought a truck years ago: the steering wheel blocked the speedometer from view.
A whole car is very unlikely IMHO.
I can also see Apple getting involved in home energy solutions. Things like inverters you can plug into an outlet for solar panels. Or a natural gas fuel cell. Pretty utilitarian stuff though - nothing Jony would have much interest in.
That's exactly what my post from above was getting at. An entire car makes no sense from Apple's perspective. But to have a piece of Apple tech in EVERY car (or nearly every car) vastly expands its reach.
GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota each hover around 15% market share. Nissan and Honda are each less than 10%.
Mercedes, about 2.5%
Porsche, BMW? They're not even on the radar. Probably less than 1% each, and they've been building cars for a while.
Where do you suppose Apple would fit in? Is Apple the Chevy of computers, or the Porsche?
10% US market share of automobiles is "moderate success". Really?
Tim's going to have a test track built into the spaceship.
An actual Apple Car, a vehicle made by Apple, is bullshit. This post over at VW Vortex sums it up nicely:
http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?p=87189708#post87189708
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/02/16/apple-wants-to-own-the-dashboard/23519593/
my thought exactly
how to accelerate carplay integraton, how to jump start the slowness of the auto industry
i'd love to have an apple store have installers for my carplay by apple
Thanks for the links. This is exactly the line of reasoning I had when these flurries of 'iCar" rumours bloomed up last week. While it is true that Apple "could be" working on a revolutionary car (electric & autonomous driving), because Apple has the financial resources to do so, it would be an extreme right-hand-turn for the company's strategy. Apple has, in the post-Steve-return era, been very consistent in expanding its ecosystem and base. Each new device & service is building well upon that base. Each device adds value to it, and each device targets pretty much a global market (within their higher end market price) with only minor changes in areas like wireless connectivity. Going for the dashboard is reasonably in-line with that, although the difference is it requires partnerships (which we see Apple doing more of with Homekit, Healthkit, and CarPlay already).
For those that believe Apple is likely working on a car simply because of the "iPhone" example, I believe they are missing the details. Yes, Apple was new to the mobile phone space, but as has been discussed many times, the iPhone was really a mobile computer that also made phone calls. Apple could see that this was the direction of computing and portable entertainment, and thus needed to lead there.
The car market requires a very large investment to break into, has low margins overall, and with an electric vehicle, would be a niche for many many years. Look at Tesla - which I think many would indicate took the route that is closest to what Apple "would do if they went after this market" - after many years, they are selling 10k's of vehicles, burned through a ton of money, and are facing numerous challenges.
I think that building a car is HUGELY more complex than building a computer or phone. There are just so many more decisions to be made, and within a practical time frame. With a computer, even apple relies on others to build to specification. A lot of the parts in most computers are off-the-shelf (think wires, connectors, interfaces, industry accepted design specs, fasteners, fans, etc.) Most car manufacturers rely on some suppliers to help design and build their cars, but a lot of stuff is designed and built in-house.
But think of the complexities of building a car, and moreover, a car sales and service network. Huge investments.
Consider the glove box liner in your car.
Here are some of the considerations.
Design the shape.
Engineer the shape.
Design/engineer the tooling that will produce the part in volume.
Design the part to a budget.
Send out engineering information potential suppliers.
Vet the suppliers.
Reengineer the shape because the car may or may not have air conditioning, may or may not have a glove box mounted CD player.
Engineer to account for the possibility someone will spill a Coke in the glovebox.
Engineer it to account for how the vehicle is assembled.
Engineer it to make sure it does not fall apart after 20 years of use.
Engineer it to stand up to temperatures from -40 to +140 degrees.
Engineer the fasteners.
Reengineer new fasteners so they don't rust.
Reengineer the mounts for the fasteners.
Reengineer because some mook designed the light fixture that goes in the box wrong.
Reengineer the box material because the first ones cracked or otherwise failed.
Reengineer it so that the material can be dyed any of four colors.
Reengineer it so that it can be removed without breaking by some monkey at the dealership if necessary to get to components behind it.
Reengineer to make sure the edges don't cut fingers.
Engineer to make sure the fuzzy lining does not rub off on granny's white gloves.
Reengineer to make sure it can support the weight of two S&W 9mm pistols.
Reengineer to make certain nothing bad happens if baby chews on the box.
Reengineer to make sure that in a collision it does not cause unexpected injuries.
Reengineer to make sure it is fireproof.
Reengineer the material because the first ones gave off a funny smell.
Engineer, reengineer, reengineer.
Now, lets consider the dash vents….
It's a miracle that any cars are built, much less good ones.
While I would like to see Apple take a swing at it, wow. What a project!
I think that building a car is HUGELY more complex than building a computer or phone. There are just so many more decisions to be made, and within a practical time frame. With a computer, even apple relies on others to build to specification. A lot of the parts in most computers are off-the-shelf (think wires, connectors, interfaces, industry accepted design specs, fasteners, fans, etc.) Most car manufacturers rely on some suppliers to help design and build their cars, but a lot of stuff is designed and built in-house.
But think of the complexities of building a car, and moreover, a car sales and service network. Huge investments.
Consider the glove box liner in your car.
Here are some of the considerations.
Design the shape.
Engineer the shape.
Design/engineer the tooling that will produce the part in volume.
Design the part to a budget.
Send out engineering information potential suppliers.
Vet the suppliers.
Reengineer the shape because the car may or may not have air conditioning, may or may not have a glove box mounted CD player.
Engineer to account for the possibility someone will spill a Coke in the glovebox.
Engineer it to account for how the vehicle is assembled.
Engineer it to make sure it does not fall apart after 20 years of use.
Engineer it to stand up to temperatures from -40 to +140 degrees.
Engineer the fasteners.
Reengineer new fasteners so they don't rust.
Reengineer the mounts for the fasteners.
Reengineer because some mook designed the light fixture that goes in the box wrong.
Reengineer the box material because the first ones cracked or otherwise failed.
Reengineer it so that the material can be dyed any of four colors.
Reengineer it so that it can be removed without breaking by some monkey at the dealership if necessary to get to components behind it.
Reengineer to make sure the edges don't cut fingers.
Engineer to make sure the fuzzy lining does not rub off on granny's white gloves.
Reengineer to make sure it can support the weight of two S&W 9mm pistols.
Reengineer to make certain nothing bad happens if baby chews on the box.
Reengineer to make sure that in a collision it does not cause unexpected injuries.
Reengineer to make sure it is fireproof.
Reengineer the material because the first ones gave off a funny smell.
Engineer, reengineer, reengineer.
Now, lets consider the dash vents….
It's a miracle that any cars are built, much less good ones.
While I would like to see Apple take a swing at it, wow. What a project!
Roger Penske reportedly came this close to starting up a continuation of the Saturn line, he intended to contract out the actual manufacture but GM would not bridge the gap between when he could get a third party online to produce "his" cars and when they wanted to stop dealing with the Saturn line. Penske wasn't going to re-invent the glove box, he'd contract that out to people who already had that expertise. I expect Apple would do the same; with the electronics systems being the "Apple" part., the glovebox? Notsomuch.