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Apple Lays Off 600+ Employees After Canceling Car Project
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I'm assuming you've seen the notice-- it would help to link to it.
Great point.
I had an EV6 rental in Houston that was charging to 80% so fast I couldn’t finish lunch
This issue will continue to diminish over time
Always odd on a tech site like this to see the many flavors of anti EV rhetoric pop up
The fossil fuel PR, lobbying, greenwashing and narrative shifting has done wonders to mix people up and delay
Personal carbon footprint, pollution offset credits…on and on
Yes, among similar sized cars EVs will be heavier so produces more tire particulates, but if you read the linked study, it also says that lighter acceleration and regenerative breaking can largely negate the additional tire wear compared to ICE vehicles. The actual point of interest in the report is that tire toxicity can vary three times as much depending on the material composition. It seems to me that it would be much more beneficial to have better tire standards and limits on vehicle weights (especially since Americans seems to highly favor heavier vehicles like trucks regardless of propulsion types).
1. 10 billions while sounds much, is not that much considering overall duration of the project *a decade at least.
2. I think that value of R&D and car research made by Apple might justify that cost
3. Ultimately it also contributed to AI research at Apple and also helped to shape the next CarPlay
4. The project helped Apple to link better with car industry and understand better its dynamics
So the investment was justified imho under those conditions
2. I think that value of R&D and car research made by Apple might justify that cost
3. Ultimately it also contributed to AI research at Apple and also helped to shape the next CarPlay
4. The project helped Apple to link better with car industry and understand better its dynamics
So the investment was justified imho under those conditions
Has there been a worse year for Apple news than this past year? Apple Car fails, iPhone sales crater in China, no one cares about the Vision Pro two months after launch, and they can’t get new iPads out apparently.
Wouldn't be the first time Apple's a patent troll: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockstar_Consortium
I doubtful most hardware engineers would be of any use fixing Siri or iOS software.
A larger multi-year project likely has developed technology that can be used elsewhere for Apple, and two thirds of employees were able to move within the company via their skill mix, or finding alternative jobs they were qualified for, so it’s not a total mess in the end for most of that projects staffing. All you can say is locally there are a lot of companies to work for besides Apple locally. Not all projects are successful in any field, that’s the way it is in this industry.
So I guess from now on if anyone gets hired by Apple to be part of a team for some big project that will take Apple into uncharted territory, they should make sure their resume is always up to date.
Exactly. The only reason it’s news is because it’s Apple. Any other big company and 600 layoffs wouldn’t make the news.
This is completely normal. All companies have core competence and a demand from shareholders for growth. When the market’s capacity to sink your growth requirements is exceeded then you need to move into other markets to maintain growth.
Apple have been extremely successful in this case by actually creating new markets and models. However all their products are effectively done now and they are doing the old trick of trying to enter other people’s markets.
The positive thing is they know when to stop and give up. Which is exactly what happened here.
I’m interested to see where Apple will go next. Personally as a customer I’d like to see them stick to their core competency and open up their cloud with APIs and data export and turn macOS into the ultimate utility platform for engineering from software to hardware. The whole car thing is a major distraction from this.
Once again Mark Gurman reporting on something totally normal and routine for a big company as though it’s major news. It’s not. Just like it’s not when someone leaves for another company. That happens all the time.
Everyone on the project should have known this.
I joined a startup a long time ago and you don’t do that unless you know what the risks are. Even if the startup is part of a large corporate. We won and scaled the company up to over 1000 staff and sold out a few years back. But that was after I worked for 4 companies that tanked!
Apple is really dumb because they really should have bought Tesla when Tesla was down in the dumps.
Well said.
Year of year decline too. They’ll try to milk us for another iPhone price increase.
Ouch. 600 is a serious number. I guess Apple’s initial hints that most would be reassigned to different groups didn’t pan out.
It’s dismaying how these negative stories have been piling up lately. If we’re noticing problems just imagine what people inside Apple are seeing.
It’s dismaying how these negative stories have been piling up lately. If we’re noticing problems just imagine what people inside Apple are seeing.
I never said all late comers are Tesla copies. There are many EV’s that aren’t similar to a Tesla. I just said this particular one was a cheap Tesla copy.
It’s not surprising since Xiaomi has been copying Apple for years, so why not copy Tesla when it comes to cars? It’s their business model.
Not only was Tesla the first to mass produce EV‘s in the USA but to my knowledge, they’re the only company that is successful when it comes to selling electric vehicles. Sure other companies sell them, but with huge losses that are either covered by selling ICE vehicles like Ford or covered by billionaires with deep pockets. I would love to see a company other than Tesla that could successfully market an EV in the USA. This is a bit off topic from my original comment but still relevant I think.
Where there is smoke there’s fire.
Apple apparently isn’t unlike other tech and media companies that had there share of mass layoffs.
Hope they all bounce back.
Dead on.
It’s been said here countless times and it remains accurate: Apple is finally experiencing the downside of leadership that doesn’t really have a vision for the future. Apple has, under Tim Cook, been very effective at eliminating designers and visionaries from their top level jobs. Cook himself appears to be unable to make a major decision or stay laser focused on a specific product. Given the collapse of various expensive projects inside Apple lately even the Vision appears to be a Hail Mary rather than a confident play by Cook.
Tesla is currently hiring people. Sure they are having a slower year just like many companies, but I don’t think it’s that bad for them. I mean every year can’t be an increase for sales. That’s what I hate about everything connected to investors because all they think about is oh my God did sales increase 20% this year and if not, why not. What do you mean you only sold 1 billion widgets this year, why not 1.2 billion 🤣
Tesla is getting hit pretty hard by horrible publicity and extremely negative perceptions of its CEO. That has suppressed their potential customer base and will likely lead to the entire company failing… unless Musk divests himself or sells it. Because he’s not going to suddenly become rational and effective.
Elon Musk’s reputation is falling — and it’s taking Tesla with it
Musk’s behavior may be contributing to Tesla’s declining sales.
www.theverge.com
Anyone who knows engineering knows that this was bound to happen. Apple sucks at engineering and inventing. That’s what their suppliers do.
Apple is great at marketing and branding. They use their enormous sales volume to get the best discounts from suppliers, but they always fail at hard, intellectual stuff.
This is just Apple admitting defeat and falling back to their strengths. They tried inventing and competing on the bleeding edge and got smacked in the face like an arrogant pompous kid who thinks he can be a math PhD and then gets humbled by Real Analysis. Leave the inventing to their suppliers. Focus on marketing and high sales volumes.
Apple is great at marketing and branding. They use their enormous sales volume to get the best discounts from suppliers, but they always fail at hard, intellectual stuff.
This is just Apple admitting defeat and falling back to their strengths. They tried inventing and competing on the bleeding edge and got smacked in the face like an arrogant pompous kid who thinks he can be a math PhD and then gets humbled by Real Analysis. Leave the inventing to their suppliers. Focus on marketing and high sales volumes.
Actually, as in investor, it’s mostly about volatility. You want an investment that isn’t going to tank on market open and take you with it.
Tesla is bubble material. Everyone is talking about growth. There is lots of hype. Delivery is uncertain. But no one seems to notice that the gains have tapered off. But they are hanging on the corporate mouthpiece of Musk which is quite frankly like trusting a crackie on the streets of SF. It’s flatlining because the early investors pulled out ages ago after riding the hype leaving the hype and bubble investors to sink the losses which are coming. That exit included me.
The reality is that Tesla and other EV companies do not have a sustainable market in the current financial climate or their existing sales models. When the rich people have bought their share of cars the market is dead as there is no visible long term market for the vehicles. Even the traditional corporate and rental market doesn’t work with them. I think Apple worked that out and pulled out.
AI is the next bubble. I’ve dumped my investments there and put them back in low risk ETFs waiting for the next one. I made an absolute killing on the EV and AI hype. The reason you hear about this stuff is because there are bastards like me out there who want you to pump the stock value not because the thing is ultimately viable but because the hype generates cash.