Did Apple actually think all it had to do was steal Tesla employees, wave a magic wand, and poof it would have its very own autonomous Apple car. Apple doesn't make cars it makes cool gadgets. Apple should start by buying an automotive company it's what they do best. Buying other companies, stealing their ideas, and making them their own. And, don't think you're gonna get your old jobs back former Tesla employees:P
There's no guarantee Tesla will even be around in 5-10 years. The company just sought out another 1/2 billion in new loans. They seem to be teetering on the edge of failure more often and if they miss their deliveries or sales goals too often, they're toast. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that Musk is working like a man possessed to make Tesla and SpaceX work, but he's rushing it because he has to rush it. He has almost no cushion.
No guarantee, yes. But I wouldn't bet against Tesla. He took out some new big loans but the company is far in the lead in the electric car market and that market is set to explode with the launch of the Model 3. All up side. They'll also be selling people home batteries and solar panels to charge their car and power their home. They are well positioned.
[Tesla] have built a large charging network across the world.
What a ridiculous, laughable assertion. Stopped reading right there.
What's ridiculous about it? There are 703 Supercharger stations with 4,343 Superchargers on 4 continents: North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. It's not everywhere in the world, but it's across the world, in the same vein that Apple Stores across the world—only 486 of those and they had a much longer head start. You might as well say that McDonald's being world-wide is a laughable assertion because there isn't a restaurant on the summit of Everest (there is a Starbucks¡).
There's 10,000 Seven Eleven's in North America, not to count all the other gas stations, restaurants, fast food establishments, any of which are primed for EV charging stations.
Um, you do understand that this helps Tesla sell more cars, not hinders it. One the main reasons people who can afford and want a Tesla are still holding back is because gas stations are so commonplace right now. When that increases then interest in Tesla also increases.
Tesla could as easily end up as Saturn, which never made any money and was heavily subsidized by GM.
1) What did Saturn ever do to revolutionize the automobile's underlying technologies? Again, whether Tesla as a company grows into a juggernaut that can buy, say, GM, or whether they are eventually sold to, say, Ford, it makes no difference when your argument is that Tesla is a "ridiculous" and "pointless" company that has "done nothing" for the automotive industry.
2) It's a weird argument when your claim that Tesla sucks is because a) they have debt, and 2) they aren't the biggest. Perhaps you should stop looking at every company like its Apple, and maybe do a little research to see that the Big 3 in the US and Japan have had massive debts, been on the brink of bankruptcy, and many have taken bailouts. Additionally, you should look at what automobile brands have the largest mindshare that sell considerably fewer units than Tesla.
How does that relate to the story? Auto manufacturers have huge levels of assets, a barrier to entry that Tesla, Apple, and others have to penetrate, and most are used to operating on low margins for cars, or put better, they prefer to sell SUV's, Pickups and upscale models. At the time of GM's bankruptcy, there was some 40% of overcapacity in the industry. Tesla needs to prove that it can make money in the automotive business.
I find your comments immeasurably odd because we've seen this happen time and time again when market dynamics change. We've even seen in the car industry… within most of our lifetimes.
Odd? Really?
The auto industry is full of 100 year old manufacturers, who have survived multiple world wars, depressions, recessions, oil crises, foreign competitors, regulation, mergers, innovation, and upstart competition, including a particular 13 year old company that comes immediately to mind.
There isn't any barrier to entry into the automotive business, Tesla proved that and now they are part of that same industry. More to the point, there is less a percent point to penetration in the EV business, the rest is wide open territory.
[Tesla] have built a large charging network across the world.
What a ridiculous, laughable assertion. Stopped reading right there.
What's ridiculous about it? There are 703 Supercharger stations with 4,343 Superchargers on 4 continents: North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. It's not everywhere in the world, but it's across the world, in the same vein that Apple Stores across the world—only 486 of those and they had a much longer head start. You might as well say that McDonald's being world-wide is a laughable assertion because there isn't a restaurant on the summit of Everest (there is a Starbucks¡).
There's nothing ridiculous about it. Its charging network is a phenomenal advantage.
An advantage I'd be more impressed with if there weren't 168,000 gas stations in the United States alone.
This car project of their's seems to be a mess. Everybody seems to be working on autonomous electric vehicles nowadays, with many of these companies way ahead of Apple. There's nothing Apple can offer over anybody else. They should just cut their losses and mothball this money pit of a project.
Anyone else mentally substitute "cellphone" for "car" and giggle just a little bit?
How does that relate to the story? Auto manufacturers have huge levels of assets, a barrier to entry that Tesla, Apple, and others have to penetrate, and most are used to operating on low margins for cars, or put better, they prefer to sell SUV's, Pickups and upscale models. At the time of GM's bankruptcy, there was some 40% of overcapacity in the industry. Tesla needs to prove that it can make money in the automotive business.
I find your comments immeasurably odd because we've seen this happen time and time again when market dynamics change. We've even seen in the car industry… within most of our lifetimes.
Auto manufacturers have huge levels of assets, a barrier to entry that Tesla, Apple, and others have to penetrate
There isn't any barrier to entry into the automotive business, Tesla proved that and now they are part of that same industry.
1) First you write there is a barrier to entry and then you writ there isn't any barrier. You can't even keep your own anti-Apple argument on track. Brilliant¡
2) If you do a little research you'll find plenty of times where automotive paradigms changed dramatically within the industry. Did you know there was a time that a car made in Japan was not considered a quality car by an American? :gasp:
3) You need to ask yourself you so many other car companies have been able to enter an established market, yet Apple, despite being the most valuable corporation in the world, leading supply chain and connections, already having their hands deep into design, machining and electronics, and having vast deposits of cash on hand, are incapable of being able to add something to the market.
This car project of their's seems to be a mess. Everybody seems to be working on autonomous electric vehicles nowadays, with many of these companies way ahead of Apple. There's nothing Apple can offer over anybody else. They should just cut their losses and mothball this money pit of a project.
Anyone else mentally substitute "cellphone" for "car" and giggle just a little bit?
Good. I've always felt this has been a boondongle. Let Ford, GM, Toyota and ect. handle the wheels and the tires. Let Apple handle the hardware and software to make it amazing.
Personally, I think Cars are going to be ever less important as we have deeper urban development. I think sometime this century in Western Nations car use will go down, not up. Simply put, there's less reason to drive than ever before.
Why would they license tech and not develop their own product?
Producing an electric car changes nothing, even if the industry went upside down.
There are some very, very big conglomerates that have gentlemen agreements between them that makes the ME VS ALL approach to an auto-product not worth it at all. I'm not saying that Apple couldn't make a fantastic car, superior on every metric to any other mass market car. They could, as time goes on it's all about electronics and software and supply chain, and no one can touch Apple on those parameters.
What I'm saying is: Unlike the cellphone industry, where Apple managed to get the support of big, big players like Google + AT&T in order to have a chance to sell and show a great product, there's no way in hell that Apple can hold a candle Vs FIAT + Daimler + Volkswagen + Exxon + Shell + PetroChina and so on.
Apple should and will completely ignore cars. More than ever, cars are toys and will become toys to petrolheads like me (911R, please). The real goldmine, the real issue, the real treasure, is transportation.
Apple should focus on Buses, Trains, Trucks and so on in order to have a big, global level impact. They should make a fully electric, modern bus that people actually want to use, and sell it to companies and countries (like Phone Carriers). Same for trains and trucks.
Cars are already a liability on big, with high population density, cities. The trillion dollars opportunity is transportation. Change and modernize that.
I'm amazed that only one of the comments, this one by MacBAir, hints at the real future.
The car of the future is already here. It's called a Smartphone. Think about it. If you were to clear the slate, look at the modern world and ask yourself, how would I design a transportation system given existing and soon-to-come technologies, like autonomous driving, real-time availability scheduling. Route optimization, etc, no way you'd conclude there should be a car, or two, in every garage. You'd create a technology/software infrastructure to allow individuals to call up the transportation they need (car, truck, van, etc) on-demand. And it would show up wherever they are, or wherever they are going to be, when it's needed. You'd be able to schedule transportation in advance, like the airport shuttles of yesteryear that you'd schedule a week in advance. Über pretty much killed that business, I expect.
Or schedule recurring transportation, such as to take the kids to soccer practice and back. In this case the transportation technology system might suggest a shared van service, that knows the schedules for local after school sports practice and offers up and constructs pick-up and drop-off routes based upon participation; a regular route to gather up the kids and deliver them. Accommodation for security will be considered when children are being transported without accompanying parents, such as real-time tracking and a constant open line of communication, both audio and video streaming from the vehicle to parent's smartphones.
The specific vehicle that arrives can be determined by number of passengers, whether you'll be transporting something large or just yourself, etc. The notion of owning, maintaining, accommodating parking requirements of, insuring, etc, a personal vehicle, for many people, has already begun to feel like 'the old paridigm.'
To create this infrastructure, you need route optimization software, that incorporates the real-time whereabouts of all vehicles in a local fleet. You need scheduling software. You need to deal with remaining charge/range of each vehicle out in service to know when a vehicle can accommodate an additional requested or scheduled route without running out of juice. You need to accommodate stand-by, where the vehicle drops someone off at a location and is requested to stand-by for an indeterminate time while the person goes into a store or bank to run an errand. In short, you need a very sophisticated set of interacting technologies to accommodate smooth operation of a transportation network that provides near immediate responsiveness to a population's constantly fluctuating needs.
If I were Tim Cook, this is exactly the way I'd envision the future, and this is what I'd set out to create. It's not so much about constructing vehicles yourself, but about getting sign-in from all vehicle manufacturers such that their vehicles can work within the envisioned transportation network. And that means that people who do own vehicles could lend them into their local autonomous transportation fleet in order to earn money (this has already been suggested by Musk and makes sense for a maker of vehicles to accommodate, as it helps him sell more Teslas direct to consumers). It means that new rental fleets will simply be staged in large metro areas, with one or more depots that the vehicles come back to for recharging, maintenance, cleaning, etc. And that means that there's a path forward for the rental companies, because they already have such staging areas for their existing fleets. The big picture can be accommodated during a transition phase from the world we have today to a world where almost all transportation is shared and autonomous.
Extend this to trucking, inter-city bussing, etc, and the whole thing becomes a future that Apple could play a major role in developing. Without ever producing, on their own, a single vehicle.
Comments though valid are respectfully IMO unrealistic.
It does make sense (If you were to clear the slate, look at the modern world and ask yourself, how would I design a transportation system given existing and soon-to-come technologies, like autonomous driving, real-time availability scheduling. Route optimization, etc, no way you'd conclude there should be a car, or two, in every garage.)
but that somewhat of a flawed analasiss
the big reason that there's a car even two in every garage is the same that you have a house of you're own that you don't share with any one not related to you, and that is you don't want to wait for a car to pick you up that's an inconvenience regardless of how well sounding this idea might be it'll never work for the same reason no one rents theire homes out when they go on vacation even though for that time you're house is unused and basically serving no purpose, owning a house and or a car is one of the most affirmative exercising of freedom into adulthood enjoyed and desired by most, who takes a taxi even though they own a nice Mec or BMW ? Über is for people with out cars
scenario if You'd create a technology/software infrastructure to allow individuals to call up the transportation they need (car, truck, van, etc) on-demand. And it would show up wherever they are e.g leaving from work back home ?
isn't it likely that everybody leaves from work at the same time and unless you have cars ready to pick up everyone that some won't have transportation ?
if self driving cars were readily available and those who owned them leased them out when they went using them to go around shuttling people around that whould stop when the owner needed the car, what if there's an imegency and your car is out God knows where you're now stuck waiting for some one else's car when you spent money buying your own ?
individualize car ownership is never going away no more than Ferrari or Lamborghini are going away any time soon and full driving automation is not going to change that, it will how ever make driving far more safer and pleasant and in some scenario it will complement it as in
schedule recurring transportation, such as to take the kids to soccer practice and back. In this case the transportation technology system that's a shared van service, that knows the schedules for local after school sports practice and offers up and constructs pick-up and drop-off routes based upon participation; a regular route to gather up the kids and deliver them. Accommodation for security will be considered when children are being transported without accompanying parents, such as real-time tracking and a constant open line of communication, both audio and video streaming from the vehicle to parent's smartphones.
The specific vehicle that arrives can be determined by number of passengers, whether you'll be transporting something large or just yourself
but this isn't replacing private ownership with shared service it's just buying a robot to be you're chauffeur
I hate it when people call people being let go "firing" when the people being "fired" have merely been let go due to business reasons, or things that aren't their fault.
At least in the US, being "fired" means it had something to do with your performance or something you clearly did wrong: there is a requirement that the employee was not fulfilling their end of the deal as they should, as an employee, whether it's poor performance, dishonesty/insubordination or theft or something else.
When a company lets someone go for business reasons (a change of plans, financial reasons, anything that has nothing to do with the affected employee other than the fact that they get let go) that's called a layoff.
The reason these terms are important to get correct is because this affects how readily ex-employees can be rehired, as well as their ability (depending on the state) to collect unemployment benefits, long-term. It's not remotely fair to say "so-and-so got fired from XYZ company." when it had nothing to do with their behavior: that puts a black mark on that person because you were careless and/or stupid. The facts are that companies make business decisions to pivot towards something else, either because of lack of money to pursue something, perhaps because they think they have some better use of their resources, or they conclude that what they were working towards just won't work out as well as intended, so it's simply time to pull the plug. Companies would ideally repurpose employees towards some other project rather than letting them go, but we don't live in an ideal world; if this were absolutely required of companies, people would be employed far beyond what makes sense for either the company or the employees, and the company would be financially more susceptible to things going wrong and not being able to reduce expenses, which would also result in even less job security overall for employees. I say this as someone that has been laid off from multiple places through no fault of my own, and yes, I've been fired at least once in my history: it is what it is.
I hate it when people call people being let go "firing" when the people being "fired" have merely been let go due to business reasons, or things that aren't their fault.
At least in the US, being "fired" means it had something to do with your performance or something you clearly did wrong: there is a requirement that the employee was not fulfilling their end of the deal as they should, as an employee, whether it's poor performance, dishonesty/insubordination or theft or something else.
When a company lets someone go for business reasons (a change of plans, financial reasons, anything that has nothing to do with the affected employee other than the fact that they get let go) that's called a layoff.
The reason these terms are important to get correct is because this affects how readily ex-employees can be rehired, as well as their ability (depending on the state) to collect unemployment benefits, long-term. It's not remotely fair to say "so-and-so got fired from XYZ company." when it had nothing to do with their behavior: that puts a black mark on that person because you were careless and/or stupid. The facts are that companies make business decisions to pivot towards something else, either because of lack of money to pursue something, perhaps because they think they have some better use of their resources, or they conclude that what they were working towards just won't work out as well as intended, so it's simply time to pull the plug. Companies would ideally repurpose employees towards some other project rather than letting them go, but we don't live in an ideal world; if this were absolutely required of companies, people would be employed far beyond what makes sense for either the company or the employees, and the company would be financially more susceptible to things going wrong and not being able to reduce expenses, which would also result in even less job security overall for employees. I say this as someone that has been laid off from multiple places through no fault of my own, and yes, I've been fired at least once in my history: it is what it is.
In the US you can use fired to refer to any discharge from a position. The NOAD simply states, "the dismissal of an employee from a job."
I'm still amazed that people think it's better for Apple NOT to make the whole widget. When has that ever been successful for them in the past? Why would they just want to be a piece of technology in somebody else's consumer product?
You make a good point. Making the whole widget is what made Apple what it is today but on the flip side, CarPlay, with respect to 2016 / 2017 model year cars, has a gained a lot of traction.
[Tesla] have built a large charging network across the world.
What a ridiculous, laughable assertion. Stopped reading right there.
What's ridiculous about it? There are 703 Supercharger stations with 4,343 Superchargers on 4 continents: North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. It's not everywhere in the world, but it's across the world, in the same vein that Apple Stores across the world—only 486 of those and they had a much longer head start. You might as well say that McDonald's being world-wide is a laughable assertion because there isn't a restaurant on the summit of Everest (there is a Starbucks¡).
There's nothing ridiculous about it. Its charging network is a phenomenal advantage.
An advantage I'd be more impressed with if there weren't 168,000 gas stations in the United States alone.
But there are way more electrical outlets. Gas stations are necessary for all the energy an ICE needs. Super chargers are for long distance travel. Once you own an EV, you understand that the concept of "filling up" is very different. Go to the store, then "fill up" at home. Go to work, then fill up at home. Etc...
The importance of the range of the car becomes less relevant because 99.9% of the time drivers are making short trips.
[Tesla] have built a large charging network across the world.
What a ridiculous, laughable assertion. Stopped reading right there.
What's ridiculous about it? There are 703 Supercharger stations with 4,343 Superchargers on 4 continents: North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. It's not everywhere in the world, but it's across the world, in the same vein that Apple Stores across the world—only 486 of those and they had a much longer head start. You might as well say that McDonald's being world-wide is a laughable assertion because there isn't a restaurant on the summit of Everest (there is a Starbucks¡).
There's nothing ridiculous about it. Its charging network is a phenomenal advantage.
An advantage I'd be more impressed with if there weren't 168,000 gas stations in the United States alone.
But there are way more electrical outlets. Gas stations are necessary for all the energy an ICE needs. Super chargers are for long distance travel. Once you own an EV, you understand that the concept of "filling up" is very different. Go to the store, then "fill up" at home. Go to work, then fill up at home. Etc...
The importance of the range of the car becomes less relevant because 99.9% of the time drivers are making short trips.
Until you want to (or need to) go on a long-term road trip, be it on vacation or for business.
I'm still amazed that people think it's better for Apple NOT to make the whole widget. When has that ever been successful for them in the past? Why would they just want to be a piece of technology in somebody else's consumer product?
You make a good point. Making the whole widget is what made Apple what it is today but on the flip side, CarPlay, with respect to 2016 / 2017 model year cars, has a gained a lot of traction.
But isn't CarPlay really just projected UI from the iPhone? I know some vehicles have a Siri button on the steering wheel but it's not like real time Apple software embedded into all parts of the vehicle.
I'm still amazed that people think it's better for Apple NOT to make the whole widget. When has that ever been successful for them in the past? Why would they just want to be a piece of technology in somebody else's consumer product?
You make a good point. Making the whole widget is what made Apple what it is today but on the flip side, CarPlay, with respect to 2016 / 2017 model year cars, has a gained a lot of traction.
But isn't CarPlay really just projected UI from the iPhone? I know some vehicles have a Siri button on the steering wheel but it's not like real time Apple software embedded into all parts of the vehicle.
The Ui is pushed from the iPhone, but the car's touchscreen, buttons and knobs still needs to be integrated to work with CarPlay.
Comments
TIM COOK: (With hushed sincerity) We think the future of cars is ... apps.
(Collective groan)
;P
Really?
The auto industry is full of 100 year old manufacturers, who have survived multiple world wars, depressions, recessions, oil crises, foreign competitors, regulation, mergers, innovation, and upstart competition, including a particular 13 year old company that comes immediately to mind.
There isn't any barrier to entry into the automotive business, Tesla proved that and now they are part of that same industry. More to the point, there is less a percent point to penetration in the EV business, the rest is wide open territory.
2) If you do a little research you'll find plenty of times where automotive paradigms changed dramatically within the industry. Did you know there was a time that a car made in Japan was not considered a quality car by an American? :gasp:
3) You need to ask yourself you so many other car companies have been able to enter an established market, yet Apple, despite being the most valuable corporation in the world, leading supply chain and connections, already having their hands deep into design, machining and electronics, and having vast deposits of cash on hand, are incapable of being able to add something to the market.
Personally, I think Cars are going to be ever less important as we have deeper urban development. I think sometime this century in Western Nations car use will go down, not up. Simply put, there's less reason to drive than ever before.
It does make sense (If you were to clear the slate, look at the modern world and ask yourself, how would I design a transportation system given existing and soon-to-come technologies, like autonomous driving, real-time availability scheduling. Route optimization, etc, no way you'd conclude there should be a car, or two, in every garage.)
but that somewhat of a flawed analasiss
the big reason that there's a car even two in every garage is the same that you have a house of you're own that you don't share with any one not related to you, and that is you don't want to wait for a car to pick you up that's an inconvenience regardless of how well sounding this idea might be it'll never work for the same reason no one rents theire homes out when they go on vacation even though for that time you're house is unused and basically serving no purpose, owning a house and or a car is one of the most affirmative exercising of freedom into adulthood enjoyed and desired by most, who takes a taxi even though they own a nice Mec or BMW ? Über is for people with out cars
scenario if You'd create a technology/software infrastructure to allow individuals to call up the transportation they need (car, truck, van, etc) on-demand. And it would show up wherever they are e.g leaving from work back home ?
isn't it likely that everybody leaves from work at the same time and unless you have cars ready to pick up everyone that some won't have transportation ?
if self driving cars were readily available and those who owned them leased them out when they went using them to go around shuttling people around that whould stop when the owner needed the car, what if there's an imegency and your car is out God knows where you're now stuck waiting for some one else's car when you spent money buying your own ?
individualize car ownership is never going away no more than Ferrari or Lamborghini are going away any time soon and full driving automation is not going to change that, it will how ever make driving far more safer and pleasant and in some scenario it will complement it as in
schedule recurring transportation, such as to take the kids to soccer practice and back. In this case the transportation technology system that's a shared van service, that knows the schedules for local after school sports practice and offers up and constructs pick-up and drop-off routes based upon participation; a regular route to gather up the kids and deliver them. Accommodation for security will be considered when children are being transported without accompanying parents, such as real-time tracking and a constant open line of communication, both audio and video streaming from the vehicle to parent's smartphones.
The specific vehicle that arrives can be determined by number of passengers, whether you'll be transporting something large or just yourself
but this isn't replacing private ownership with shared service it's just buying a robot to be you're chauffeur
At least in the US, being "fired" means it had something to do with your performance or something you clearly did wrong: there is a requirement that the employee was not fulfilling their end of the deal as they should, as an employee, whether it's poor performance, dishonesty/insubordination or theft or something else.
When a company lets someone go for business reasons (a change of plans, financial reasons, anything that has nothing to do with the affected employee other than the fact that they get let go) that's called a layoff.
The reason these terms are important to get correct is because this affects how readily ex-employees can be rehired, as well as their ability (depending on the state) to collect unemployment benefits, long-term. It's not remotely fair to say "so-and-so got fired from XYZ company." when it had nothing to do with their behavior: that puts a black mark on that person because you were careless and/or stupid. The facts are that companies make business decisions to pivot towards something else, either because of lack of money to pursue something, perhaps because they think they have some better use of their resources, or they conclude that what they were working towards just won't work out as well as intended, so it's simply time to pull the plug. Companies would ideally repurpose employees towards some other project rather than letting them go, but we don't live in an ideal world; if this were absolutely required of companies, people would be employed far beyond what makes sense for either the company or the employees, and the company would be financially more susceptible to things going wrong and not being able to reduce expenses, which would also result in even less job security overall for employees. I say this as someone that has been laid off from multiple places through no fault of my own, and yes, I've been fired at least once in my history: it is what it is.
The importance of the range of the car becomes less relevant because 99.9% of the time drivers are making short trips.