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The fundamentals of electric engines aren't very complicated. Manufacturing an actual all-the-bits modern luxury electric vehicle is way, way, way more complic

The fundamentals of electric engines aren't very complicated. Manufacturing an actual all-the-bits modern luxury electric vehicle is way, way, way more complicated than making a phone, and also hard in a very different way than making a phone. One of the things that has made me never really believe in Apple's competitive advantage with cars is that beyond an ultra-high talking points level ("design!"), I don't see any reason to believe that Apple has relevant expertise.

Retric 10y ago
Apple can flat out buy a huge car company. Ford is worth 47.26B, GM 50B apple could buy both with less than 1/2 of their cash on hand. Now buying Ford is probably not the way to go. But, Apple can skip a lot of the 'ramp up' if they ever wanted to get into the car business.
- aetherson 10y ago
  I agree, Apple could skip a lot of ramp-up if they buy a car company. But, then, what are they bringing to this hypothetical scenario? Does buying an existing car company make it easier for them to bring some kind of distinctive iCar onto the market? If so, what do we imagine is the distinctive iCar-ness that they're bringing? There are two things that I hear people say Apple is notably good at: 1. "Design." 2. Controlling a complicated end-to-end extremely high-quality manufacturing process. For 1, I'm not sure I believe that there is a transferable organizational expertise between designing phones and designing cars. For 2, I'm not sure I believe that there is a transferable organizational expertise between manufacturing phones and manufacturing cars, and I'm definitely sure that I don't believe that they can transfer organizational expertise to manufacturing cars if they purchase an extant manufacturing process/organization.
  - Retric 10y ago
    What Apple does well is integrating hardware and software. I recently drove a car with lane following and adaptive curse control and it kind of sucked. Lane following needed great road conditions so it failed miserably. But, while adaptive cruse control was nice in heavy traffic, it was also clearly tacked on. The acceleration and deceleration was felt jerky. People can generally drive really smoothly in traffic so why suffer a machines erratic behavior when you need to focus in case it fails. Sure, do the same thing but better seems obvious but iPhone was more a response to poor completion than a truly innovative product.
    - aetherson 10y ago
      I'm also not sure that I believe that there is a transferable organizational expertise between integrating hardware and software on mobile phones and integrating hardware and software on self-driving cars. Seriously, what does that look like? What are the attributes of a person who is good at integrating hardware and software on a phone, and who also is good at integrating hardware and software on a self-driving car? Your example was jerkiness in acceleration and deceleration. The people who are good at mitigating jerkiness in acceleration and deceleration are presumably mechanical engineers and roboticists/AI guys. I don't think that any of those people have been involved in Apple's flagship, reputation-making products so far. As you allude to, it's easy to say "do the same thing but better." If all you needed was a product guy who was like, "Hey, we should make this better," then it would already be solved.
      - Retric 10y ago
        I don't think the low level technical expertise is going to transfer, but their higher level management experience of integrating hardware, software, and manufacturing can probably transfer. The best example I can give is stuttering when you drag stuff around. Android phones had issues for years with this because it's not really a hardware or software issue it's both. Eventually you can throw enough processing power to make this go away, but being a few years ahead of that curve is the kind of thing people will pay a premium for. Ed: It's the kind of issue you can't just point at one group and say fix this. PS: That said, I don't think an iCar is a good idea right now. We seem to be in the Palm pilot stage of self driving cars, give it 15 years and apple could make a killing, but it's still a little early.

Retric 10y ago

Apple can flat out buy a huge car company. Ford is worth 47.26B, GM 50B apple could buy both with less than 1/2 of their cash on hand. Now buying Ford is probably not the way to go. But, Apple can skip a lot of the 'ramp up' if they ever wanted to get into the car business.

aetherson 10y ago
I agree, Apple could skip a lot of ramp-up if they buy a car company. But, then, what are they bringing to this hypothetical scenario? Does buying an existing car company make it easier for them to bring some kind of distinctive iCar onto the market? If so, what do we imagine is the distinctive iCar-ness that they're bringing? There are two things that I hear people say Apple is notably good at: 1. "Design." 2. Controlling a complicated end-to-end extremely high-quality manufacturing process. For 1, I'm not sure I believe that there is a transferable organizational expertise between designing phones and designing cars. For 2, I'm not sure I believe that there is a transferable organizational expertise between manufacturing phones and manufacturing cars, and I'm definitely sure that I don't believe that they can transfer organizational expertise to manufacturing cars if they purchase an extant manufacturing process/organization.
- Retric 10y ago
  What Apple does well is integrating hardware and software. I recently drove a car with lane following and adaptive curse control and it kind of sucked. Lane following needed great road conditions so it failed miserably. But, while adaptive cruse control was nice in heavy traffic, it was also clearly tacked on. The acceleration and deceleration was felt jerky. People can generally drive really smoothly in traffic so why suffer a machines erratic behavior when you need to focus in case it fails. Sure, do the same thing but better seems obvious but iPhone was more a response to poor completion than a truly innovative product.
  - aetherson 10y ago
    I'm also not sure that I believe that there is a transferable organizational expertise between integrating hardware and software on mobile phones and integrating hardware and software on self-driving cars. Seriously, what does that look like? What are the attributes of a person who is good at integrating hardware and software on a phone, and who also is good at integrating hardware and software on a self-driving car? Your example was jerkiness in acceleration and deceleration. The people who are good at mitigating jerkiness in acceleration and deceleration are presumably mechanical engineers and roboticists/AI guys. I don't think that any of those people have been involved in Apple's flagship, reputation-making products so far. As you allude to, it's easy to say "do the same thing but better." If all you needed was a product guy who was like, "Hey, we should make this better," then it would already be solved.
    - Retric 10y ago
      I don't think the low level technical expertise is going to transfer, but their higher level management experience of integrating hardware, software, and manufacturing can probably transfer. The best example I can give is stuttering when you drag stuff around. Android phones had issues for years with this because it's not really a hardware or software issue it's both. Eventually you can throw enough processing power to make this go away, but being a few years ahead of that curve is the kind of thing people will pay a premium for. Ed: It's the kind of issue you can't just point at one group and say fix this. PS: That said, I don't think an iCar is a good idea right now. We seem to be in the Palm pilot stage of self driving cars, give it 15 years and apple could make a killing, but it's still a little early.