Amid Apple Car Rumors, Volkswagen CEO Welcomes Competitors to Accelerate Transformation of the Auto Industry

[ipedro]

I think that most of tech journalism is looking at this wrong. I don’t believe that Apple will be selling a car. They’ll be selling a service.

The future of transportation is already happening right now with car ownership dropping amongst the youngest generations. As more and more of the world’s population consolidates into cities — now more than half of every human on Earth lives in a city, trending towards 3/4 — it makes less sense to own a car and instead to have one on demand. We’re moving to shared transportation, whether it be public transit, car hailing apps or the sharing model where you can pick up a nearby car for personal use for a longer period.

In that context, having a long lasting battery that can run for a day with sometimes no charging times between users, makes a lot of sense.

In the near future, you’ll use your Apple Watch to summon an Apple Pod to where you are, with nobody inside. It’ll take you to where you need to go and then pick up the next passenger.

This was Uber’s ultimate goal but as of now admitted to have failed. Uber is a software company with a good idea. They underestimated the complexity of putting together a car and will rely on the private car with driver model that they started with. Apple knows how to build things. Apple is both a top tier innovative hardware company and a top tier innovative software company melded together. I trust Apple can pull this off.

 

[Serban55]

I want to change the battery? i want to change the windshield...where i go...Apple Service? there will be such a thing?
Apple is hard to come with this kind of thing since it doesnt have service and a wear house

 

[Damian83]

Bring it on Apple! Let's see what you can offer in this Auto industry

Apple winter tyres: 2.000 €/$/£ each
Apple brake fluid (1L): 200 €/$/£
Apple windshield washer fluid (5L): 500 €/$/£
Apple 10.000km/1year checkup: 5.000 €/$/£
Apple glass replacement: 2.000 €/$/£
etc...

 

[drew0020]

Says the company that cheated on emissions tests for years.

Volkswagen should have been completely dismantled for that stunt. Disgusting company.

I completely agree. I’m not sure how anyone can purchase anything from the VW Group.

 

[4jasontv]

They pleaded guilty and had to pay billions. They didn’t get off scot-free.

They didn’t really suffer enough. They still operate from a position built by criminal behavior. They should have had to refund AND buy a car, from a competitor, for every new and used VW or subsidiary that was sold within the time period. In addition to donating to ecological organizations in every state.

 

[DelayedGratificationGene]

Says the company that cheated on emissions tests for years.

Volkswagen should have been completely dismantled for that stunt. Disgusting company.

Wow yup forgot about that

 

[mozumder]

Yes. Because they are not. Should we judge Toyota’s based on their electric only performance?

the Prius Prime gets 25 miles and the RAV4 gets 42, in optimal conditions on a flat road, at 70 degrees F,

Great. So you're saying people can take the vast majority of trips under electric mode in a Prius or RAV4? I agree!

 

[now i see it]

What happened to BlackBerry and Nokia won't soon be forgotten

 

[4jasontv]

Great. So you're saying people can take the vast majority of trips under electric mode in a Prius or RAV4? I agree!

What marketing hogwash is this? If your daily commute is less than 12 miles than you need a bicycle or a metro pass - not a hybrid.

More importantly, why spend the money on an ev that can barely make it to the supermarket when you could get one for less that can drive across multiple states.

 

[citysnaps]

Not for a long time, if ever. What might be a minor accident on the ground would easily become lethal in the air.

Thank you for the heads-up - I had no idea! 😂

 

[satchmo]

Be careful who you welcome.
This from 2007:

Nokia marketing chief Johan Eidhagen welcomed Apple’s foray into the smartphone space.

“I think it’s good for the industry,” Eidhagen said. “It’s confirming what we’ve been trying to do at Nokia. We’ve been saying for the last eight years this would change from a phone market into something else. It has become an Internet industry and Apple is just confirming that with this phone.”

 

[Kabeyun]

I salute the right attitude. And speaking of attitude, as much as I respect Musk for disrupting the auto industry and pushing us down the EV path, he has a long history of Apple bashing when each company was accused of poaching the others employees, and now he’s acting all wounded. Whatevs.

 

[4jasontv]

Great. So you're saying people can take the vast majority of trips under electric mode in a Prius or RAV4? I agree!

Oh wait. Toyota says you should have gas in the tank, so it’s not really an ev.

 

[steevn]

Not everyone, they’re waiting for apples lead so they can follow just like Samsung does in the mobile industry

That’s not even Apples current method, they take an already existing technology and master it. That’s the Apple way.

I hope they are able to do something similar with cars, but they probably won’t be the ones with the groundbreaking advancements, they’ll make those advancements better though.

 

[Realityck]

Incumbent auto industry has no chance.

Tech companies have multiple times their cash, and can buy them out just in case, if needed, to kick start operations.

Only then we will see what next-gen mobility will look like.

Apple doesn't need to get into cars being recalled for safety or operational issues. Being a automotive technology provider is far less risk and more profitable.

 

[steevn]

I salute the right attitude. And speaking of attitude, as much as I respect Musk for disrupting the auto industry and pushing us down the EV path, he has a long history of Apple bashing when each company was accused of poaching the others employees, and now he’s acting all wounded. Whatevs.

That’s Elon Musk to everyone, he constantly bashes reporters and anyone who disagrees with him, then plays hurt victim.

He’s an investor, not an inventor. I’m sure I’m going to take a lot of heat from the Elon army, but I’m not taking it back lol.

 

[erthquake]

Great. So you're saying people can take the vast majority of trips under electric mode in a Prius or RAV4? I agree!

Most PHEV owners don’t plug in their cars. They use them in hybrid mode. And real world emissions of hybrids is worse than what companies advertise.

Plug-in hybrids are a 'wolf in sheep's clothing'

Although marketed as a green option, the cars cause more polluting than is claimed, campaigners say.

www.bbc.com

 

[name99]

Except that the Swiss Watch Industry was back then not working on smartwatches and had no plans to do so, while in this case, VW has an awesome lineup of BEV's

That assumes that the only thing that needs to be added to current cars to improve them is an electric drive train...

Nokia understood, *in theory*, that data support and all that entailed needed to be added to their phones. But that didn't make them iPhone competitors because they weren't willing to *utterly* reconceptualize the product.

 

[DakotaGuy]

The more, the better. Although I still think Apple is going to be more on the high end and not really "competition" to the others who will have models across all price points (in time).

There is no way a company with profit margins and a brand name like Apple will target the same market that VW, Toyota, Ford or even Tesla goes after. The one thing Apple enjoys that those other companies don't is the ability to grossly overprice a product and still have it sell amazingly well.

They could easily put $100k on an Apple car and those things will be backordered for years selling in the hundreds of thousands. Apple customers are generally pretty loaded and I think many would lay down the cash to get an Apple car even if only for the brand name. Those other automakers will probably still have a decent market selling to lower income individuals, but will never have a profit margin like Apple will.

Now will it all work? I am still pretty doubtful, but I have seen $550 headphones back ordered for months so who knows...

 

[name99]

I feel for Diess. He really does want to go full throttle into EVs, but he's being held back by the gasholes in his company. VW still has enormous challenges. It's hard to ramp EVs because it tanks their profitable ICE car sales while their EVs still have negative gross margins. It also doesn't help that their EU dealers have been leading customers away from EV purchases.

Apple has an advantage not being encumbered with an ICE car business. But they have no charging network. They have no auto production expertise, and if they try to farm it out to third party manufacturers like Magna, it's much harder to be profitable. But then they have huge amounts of cash so they have lots of runway to work things out. And they have no high-energy battery expertise, hampering range and manufacturing costs.

And they have no "reckless" drive and vision. If they did, they would have bought Tesla back in 2018.

But I'm glad Cook passed on the meeting. They're too risk-averse. There's no way Apple would have allowed CyberTruck to happen. And that thing is going to blow away legacy auto in terms of range, performance and price.

There seems like MASSIVE scope for Apple to negotiate a deal with Tesla to use their charging stations, at least for a few years. It gives Tesla a cash infusion, and lets Apple hit the ground running.
Adults don't have to like each other to see that they can work together to mutual advantage.

 

[emoore33]

VW will be one of the auto companies that survive in 10 years. Toyota will probably be bought up by someone. They have 0 plans for an EV, hybrids and plug in hybrids don't count. It's unfortunate since half the cars I've owned in my life have been Toyotas. I would love and electric 4Runner.

 

[lysingur]

I think that most of tech journalism is looking at this wrong. I don’t believe that Apple will be selling a car. They’ll be selling a service.

The future of transportation is already happening right now with car ownership dropping amongst the youngest generations. As more and more of the world’s population consolidates into cities — now more than half of every human on Earth lives in a city, trending towards 3/4 — it makes less sense to own a car and instead to have one on demand. We’re moving to shared transportation, whether it be public transit, car hailing apps or the sharing model where you can pick up a nearby car for personal use for a longer period.

In that context, having a long lasting battery that can run for a day with sometimes no charging times between users, makes a lot of sense.

In the near future, you’ll use your Apple Watch to summon an Apple Pod to where you are, with nobody inside. It’ll take you to where you need to go and then pick up the next passenger.

This was Uber’s ultimate goal but as of now admitted to have failed. Uber is a software company with a good idea. They underestimated the complexity of putting together a car and will rely on the private car with driver model that they started with. Apple knows how to build things. Apple is both a top tier innovative hardware company and a top tier innovative software company melded together. I trust Apple can pull this off.

People won't give up car ownership, especially not after Covid. Public transportation is in shambles in most of the Western world due to the pandemic and it will take a long time for it to recover so people will keep buying cars as it's the only form of transportation available right now that allows them to not be in contact with strangers.

So the big picture is more privately owned cars, not fewer.

Self-driving cars sound great in concept but are extremely difficult to implement technologically, not the least because you won't have all self-driving cars on the road. You will also have pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, and cars driven by actual human beings. The computational power that is required for a self-driving car to reach human-level decision-making in such a complex environment is enormous. You also have to consider the legal hurdles that Apple has to overcome in each municipality as this falls in its jurisdiction, not that state or Washington. That's why self-driving car sharing won't reach widespread popularity for at least a decade in North America.

You're vague on the kind of service you believe Apple will be selling. Battery technology? Or a ride-hailing app for self-driving cars? What exactly do you predict that Apple will be building? 🤔

 

[DanTSX]

Says the company that cheated on emissions tests for years.

Volkswagen should have been completely dismantled for that stunt. Disgusting company.

VW got caught. All of the manufacturers cheat.

 

[DanTSX]

Toyota makes good electric cars?

They make good cars. Which is more than a lot of other car manufacturers claim. So when they do electric, I expect it to be good.

 

[hot-gril]

while the diesel-gate created a lot of mistrust, I like the 'new' VW and see it as one of the few traditional automakers that goes the right direction with the ID line .... love my Tesla, but can't wait until all the electric VWs are available in the US. Competition is good and needed.

I could see Apple entering a partnership (or just purchase it) with one of the new Electric startups. Lucid would be great. They already have the Lucid Air ... the SUV will then be the Lucid Max and the high-end edition of it the Lucid Pro Max ...

Nah, unforgivable, not buying a VW ever. There are plenty of choices.