First Apple Car due in 2019

Generali

http://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-speeds-up-electric-car-work-1442857105

Apple Inc. is accelerating efforts to build an electric car, designating it internally as a “committed project” and setting a target ship date for 2019, according to people familiar with the matter.


The go-ahead came after the company spent more than a year investigating the feasibility of an Apple-branded car, including meetings with two groups of government officials in California. Leaders of the project, code-named Titan , have been given permission to triple the 600-person team, the people familiar with the matter said.

In 2007, Apple released the iPhone and had a market cap of $106,000,000,000 (number of shares times price per share, used as an imperfect proxy for the value of a company). By comparison, market leader Nokia had a market cap of $110,000,000,000.

Fast forward 7 years and Nokia was bought by Microsoft for $7,000,000,000 and a year later was written down to a value of $0. Meanwhile, Apple is now worth in excess of $650,000,000,000. It'll be interesting to see where VW(!), Toyota, Apple, Tesla and Google are in a decade. Watch this space!

vivatifosi

I was in a Tesla showroom two weeks back. They said that the cheaper, smaller, mass market Tesla will start promotion next year. Pricing due to be significantly cheaper than current UK entry model of circa £50k.

They also said that the other traditional manufacturers are starting to notice Tesla and catch up, largely because Tesla took the decision to open source its patents.

It will be interesting to see where Apple positions itself. I'd be worried if I was VAG, as it has a lot of p'd off aspirational buyers at the moment.

Generali

vivatifosi wrote: »

I was in a Tesla showroom two weeks back. They said that the cheaper, smaller, mass market Tesla will start promotion next year. Pricing due to be significantly cheaper than current UK entry model of circa £50k.

They also said that the other traditional manufacturers are starting to notice Tesla and catch up, largely because Tesla took the decision to open source its patents.

It will be interesting to see where Apple positions itself. I'd be worried if I was VAG, as it has a lot of p'd off aspirational buyers at the moment.

I wouldn't want to hold a substantial amount of VW at the moment. The Americans are just about to destroy them.

It'll be interesting to see what the EU does as they will be under a lot of pressure from the Germans to do nothing.

michaels

I don't get the vw thing, it was bound to come to light. I guess it is very like subprime bundles of carp being sold as aaa where the traders took the bonuses knowing they were leaving the doodoo to turn up a few years later as somebody else's problem.

What I don't get is that made sense because of the way the traders were rewarded but I don't see that the same incentive structure would apply here.

Second big problem I have is I can't believe even the most senior execs didn't know how much pollution a diesel engine puts put so they must have known the california epa figures were a fix. In europe it is fully understood that official mpg and emissions figures have no bearing on real life so it must have been obvious that the us numbers were even more fantasy.

Generali

michaels wrote: »

I don't get the vw thing, it was bound to come to light. I guess it is very like subprime bundles of carp being sold as aaa where the traders took the bonuses knowing they were leaving the doodoo to turn up a few years later as somebody else's problem.

What I don't get is that made sense because of the way the traders were rewarded but I don't see that the same incentive structure would apply here.

Second big problem I have is I can't believe even the most senior execs didn't know how much pollution a diesel engine puts put so they must have known the california epa figures were a fix. In europe it is fully understood that official mpg and emissions figures have no bearing on real life so it must have been obvious that the us numbers were even more fantasy.

If you put this together with the Siemens thing I wonder if the problem is systemic: German companies simply believing that they are above the law.

lawriejones1

Generali wrote: »

Fast forward 7 years and Nokia was bought by Microsoft for $7,000,000,000 and a year later was written down to a value of $0. Meanwhile, Apple is now worth in excess of $650,000,000,000. It'll be interesting to see where VW(!), Toyota, Apple, Tesla and Google are in a decade. Watch this space!

Businesses come and go - look at some of the biggest ones (Marconi, Kodak etc). They always over-stretch or face problems.

Apple and Google's flirtation with driverless tech is dangerous as it is a real challenge to their core competencies. It could be hubris or a genuine desire to take over the world but it's a risky gamble.

Google could potentially face anti-competition lawsuits at any point or be destroyed by its need to monetise its users' data.

This is why we love business: its sheer unpredictability.

Graham_Devon

I'd be extremely wary of buying an apple car in truth. How much will be difficult unless you go with the apple solution offered when it comes to anything?

I wouldn't mind betting that there will be stuff on the car that you can only buy from Apple. A good example could be that they make the tyres a specific difficult size in order that you can't buy easily off the shelf.

Apple is all about buying into the brand itself. So will be interesting to see if you can just buy the car and then run it like a Mondeo with a choice of where you get your consumables.

The_Angry_Jock

They'll put some !!!! brakes on the Car1 then bring out Car1S 6 months later with all new "revolutionary" brakes...and so on and so forth.

michaels

The_Angry_Jock wrote: »

They'll put some !!!! brakes on the Car1 then bring out Car1S 6 months later with all new "revolutionary" brakes...and so on and so forth.

And of course there will be no upgrade path from the Car1 to the 1S, the only option will be to throw away the Car1 and buy the 1S....but of course if you are buying the product then it is because you are insecure and think it says something about you to the people you meet (it sure does) so you will have to have the 1S even if it is identical in all but the badge to the Car1 as you fear you will be judged if you were to appear not driving the latest model....