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Former GM CEO on Apple Car: 'They Have No Idea What They're Getting Into'

69Mustang said:
Wow, are people really that bad at reading?:confused: The guy is obviously talking about the enormous pitfalls in the automotive industry. He is not disparaging Apple's rumored efforts in getting into cars. He's simply saying, "Be sure you want to do this and go in with your eyes open. If you can accept buttloads of government regulation, skinny ass margins, unions, recalls, and a crap ton of financial investment, then by all means..."

How his comments can be construed as similar to those of Ballmer and other tech execs is beyond me. I guess any perceived slight against Apple is a call to arms right?:rolleyes:
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Because he's a dinosaur, singing a dinosaur song. He went on the Daily Show, or Maher, and defended the anti-global warming "science." He's just another insider espousing an industry that used to kill 50,000 a year, now kills 30,000 with far more passenger miles-- because of "regulation," and I'm sure fought regulation on emissions, and thinks a zero-emission car is a pipe dream. He thinks he's a "realist."

That said, I don't think the end result will be an auto division of Apple. Apple Motors? I doubt it. Self-driving? Maybe. Electric, yes. They do have all those solar farms, and the entire company -- in the US, at least -- will work on solar. Propulsion systems by Apple? Guidance? Batteries? I don't know.
 
and you wouldn't want your cars framework and drivetrain components to be aluminium anyways.
 
There's no way in hell Apple will be creating cars from steel, just like they didn't build millions of iPhones, they contracted Foxconn.

We might be a few years out, but I see Apple working in close collaboration with Honda on an Apple-branded car that Honda makes for them. Let Honda take care of all of the safety and steel, let Apple work in close collaboration with interior, exterior, and technology.

If they do go the manufacturing route, which is extremely unlikely, it's not impossible if Tesla can pull it off. And the only thing holding Tesla back is charging infrastructure in less "affluent" areas and state laws prohibiting their sales model.
 
MacRumors said:
The car, which is electric, could potentially resemble a minivan.
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Really MR? This is just bad journalism, the vaporware car resembles a minivan because the load of crap on the roof of the Apple vehicle driving around just happened to be on the roof of a minivan?

Apple ain't building a car, this is so laughable it's pathetic that it keeps getting front page news here. It's becoming clickbait garbage on this site.

Imagine Apple building standalone service centers for their cars, because you sure as hell can't add service bays to the Apple stores inside malls. Think about that for a second, and you'll see how utterly retarded the entire premise of Apple building a car is.
 
nfl46 said:
$743,000,000,000. Lol. I just wanted to say that...damn, looks even more impressive written out.
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its an impressive number for sure, but doesn't mean what everyone in here thinks it means.

especially in regards to the post your quoting.

Market Cap literally ONLY means that that is the combined value of all the outstanding shares.

that is NOT a value of the companies net worth. it is also NOT an indication of Cash available or the liquidity of Assets. having share outstanding value of 740Billion is nice on paper but actually has little impact on Apple's ability to spend.
 
Apple doesn't run manufacturing, they contract other manufacturers to build to their very demanding specs.

I could see Apple designing a car and then contracting say, FHI (makers of Subaru) to build it in their Indiana plant.

If I could see them doing a car which I'm still extremely skeptical about.
 
that's rich

GM former boss speaking on how difficult it is to build automobiles - as if killing/injuring thousands due to faulty parts give him/them any cred!?
 
Amazing that they can take raw steel and turn it into airbags and seat cushions. GM must stand for Gandalf of Motoring.
 
Let's at least be clear. GM and Chrysler did not go BK. They were restructured by FEDGOV outside of traditional BK law. In a real BK the unsecured creditors, such as stockholders and pensioners and employee benefit claims would be zeroed out and bondholders would get whatever is left over. That is NOT what happened. The Obama administration intervened to support one of his voting bases, union members, to zero out the stockholders, BONDHOLDERS, and gave the firm GM2 to the employee union benefit plans! The exact opposite as "rule of law".

Before the "restructuring" GM and Chrysler were health and benefit companies with a tiny car manufacturer attached.

Most such situated employees would have been funneled into the Pension and Benefit Guaranty Corporation, a GSE set up by FEDGOV to address the many other defined benefit and union pension failures over the years, notably many airlines.

Chrysler is owned by Fiat now.

Apple on the other hand has defined benefit (fully funded) pensions and benefits, funds manufacturing partners from its own funds with prepayments and equity investments. They never even use bank loans except to bypass nonsense tax laws so they can buy back their own stock.

I agree with the former GM CEO.

To Apple's credit they seem to be partnering with:
http://www.magnasteyr.com/capabilities/vehicle-engineering-contract-manufacturing

Rocketman
 
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I'm very confident in Apple's ability to make great products. However, there are quite a few people comparing Apple's jump into the mobile phone market with a jump into the automotive industry. Surely you can understand the difference between making a small computer like the iPhone and making an automobile...
 
No iCar Coming anytime soon

"As highlighted by Bloomberg, while Apple made $18 billion in December with a gross margin of 39.9 percent, GM made just $2 billion with a gross margin of 14 percent."

Apple won't tolerate such low margins even for an iPhone case and nobody with any brains would buy an iCar with 39% margin. Well except for those who are willing to pay $4k for a gold Apple watch.
 
Packdude said:
How about working on getting your phones and computers/OS's squared away first.
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Nah. OS's will never be "squared away." It's not as though they can get everything working and then just stop developing and move on to other things. There are always new features people will want and that competitors will offer, and those features will inevitably bring new bugs. It's an ongoing process.

If Apple is going to expand into other markets, it will have to work in parallel.
 
puma1552 said:
Really MR? This is just bad journalism, the vaporware car resembles a minivan because the load of crap on the roof of the Apple vehicle driving around just happened to be on the roof of a minivan?
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It's not impossible to make a minivan, therefor a car can potentially be a minivan. :D
 
TOMIMOT said:
Apple had issues and still has issues with their maps app and they want to get into the auto industry... I think they're in over their heads. At the same time id love to be proven wrong
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i have no issues w/ the maps app.

i can't consider them over their heads because this is just an unconfirmed rumor, nothing more.
 
The car industry is a bit like the TV making biz, for apple it's a bad area to get into it purely from a car making side.

I do think they might have a chance with electric vehicles though! All the talk about tesla and apple suggests they are building something similar and considering how slow electric cars are coming to market a self driving electric from one of the biggest companies in the world seems like a great pursuit with profit margins to boot if they are first to market with something compelling.

There is so much innovation in the area and yet year after year we see the same stuff roll out of the car market.
 
Interesting how many people here think because it is Apple, everything they touch turns into Gold.
 
Having fresh new minds from OUTSIDE an existing paradigm, deconstruct it, and then reassemble into a new one...is healthy. GM might actually benefit from this whole exercise in the end as Apple may contract them as a supplier for those things for which GM is are already tooled up for.

Robotics, assembly lines, materials science...could all see potential changes/improvements.
 
Old fuddy dutty

He's probably still using his Palm. He took the bailout and closed hundreds of dealerships. What does he know about success?

When you can hire away the best engineers and marketeers from the other companies, you stand an excellent chance of being successful.
 
Ceo position available. No iq test required

because we all know it's much much harder to turn a large piece of steel into a large moving vehicle than it is to take a piece of aluminum and a pile of rare minerals and turn them into 6mm slabs of glass and metal with instant access to the breadth of mankind's knowledge. Is this guy the idiot who tanked GM or the guy who wanted to take credit for getting the govt to bail it out? "Giving Tesla a run for its money" has absolutely zero to do with giving Detroit dinosaurs a run for theirs.
 
mdelvecchio said:
i have no issues w/ the maps app.

i can't consider them over their heads because this is just an unconfirmed rumor, nothing more.
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Come to the UK. Apparently my house is in a lake ... And we don't even have lakes around here and the amount of sightseeing places in London - STILL mispelled, is just unreal.
 
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