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Hundreds of Apple Employees Working On Apple-Branded Electric Vehicle
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The low margins of the automotive industry are a well known fact and easily researched. I don't think you read very well. Either that or your inner monologue is lying to you. Show me where I said Apple needed to make a huge profit. You can't.
Apple could get into a lot of businesses and make less profit. Historically they haven't and nothing they've done indicates they want to do so. Their history does lend credence to my assertion that Apple actively avoids low margin opportunities. Press consensus was Apple was releasing a low cost/low margin phone to compete with the players at the bottom of the market. 5C was nowhere near that. Also a low profit or profit losing venture doesn't help them with their cash repatriation issue. It doesn't work that way. Sorry.
Not sure what you're saying here. I never said they couldn't. I said it was unlikely. See the difference.
What? EV's are cars. It's pure electronics? I won't dignify that.
If they are, so what. I agree. It's unlikely for a host of reasons. Me not getting it is not one of them.
Twice you've alluded to what I would do or say. Twice you've been horribly wrong. Why do you insist on attributing thoughts to me that clearly come from you? Making up stuff is not cool. You should really stop.
FYI, Elon Musk is not on Apple's Board of Directors. You would do well to complete a cursory google before posting nonsense.
Learn to read cause "probably 50%", I'm pretty sure is not an straight statement of facts.
My speculative numbers versus well, your garbage level snark, we both have our specialties hey!
Don't bother replying; you are on my no read/answer list from now on.
Thank god, the rubbish that comes out of you daily is annoying to say the least. You just randomly make up numbers and other things, on all topics, to try to suit whatever agenda it is you have.
And I can read just fine, it's the making up ****, that you have no clue about, that's the problem.
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Where are the profits in the phone and PC segments outside of Apple (and Samsung)?
And those companies have been in the car business forever. The majority of those companies have a net profit in the 10% range. Porsche is still somewhat of a niche market. And Apple would need to support those cars for service and maintainence. They would have to build infrastructure from the ground up.
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Other companies operate on much lower margins than Apple, especially the car industry. Remember, the only thing Apple customers care about is how much profit Apple makes. Or at least that's what I get from reading this forum. Perhaps Apple will suddenly get into a low volume, low profit business, who knows?
I will love to have am apple car even if the max speed is 60mph. It will be perfect since the speed limit in NYC is now 25mph unless otherwise posted. The cities are so crowded with cars and pedestrians now you can only let loose on the highways.
The point is low margins haven't stopped Apple from getting into businesses in the past. And as cars are changing and becoming more software based who's to say the same margins will apply?
A car is still a solid chunk of hardware. There is no recent indication that Apple will spend billions to enter a low margin market dominated by players who have been in the business for 75 to over 100 years, but anything is possible. Maybe they'll get into the grocery business too, who knows?
Mini Van?
Are you kidding me? A minivan would make 0 sense and no one would buy it. I think they said minivan because they saw a vehicle leased by Apple that was a minivan. They simply used a mini van to presumably start building out their street view technology as that particular car it was confirmed had an actual driver behind the wheel driving.
There is 0 chance that if Apple were working on a car it would be a minivan.
Are you kidding me? A minivan would make 0 sense and no one would buy it. I think they said minivan because they saw a vehicle leased by Apple that was a minivan. They simply used a mini van to presumably start building out their street view technology as that particular car it was confirmed had an actual driver behind the wheel driving.
There is 0 chance that if Apple were working on a car it would be a minivan.
Smart cars are too small and aren't really technologically advanced. I need a mid sized sedan.
Not sure where you got those relatively high margin numbers. The low end in your numbers are the actual high end in the automotive industry. Take higher end car companies BMW, Audi, and Mercedes. For 2013, BMW's net margin was 10.5, Audi was 10.1, and Mercedes was 6.5. Cursory search didn't reveal the full year 2014 numbers.
Gross margins?
BMW 5yr avg 20%. High of 24 and low of 13.5
Mercedes avg 22%. High of 25 low of 20
Audi is in the VW numbers. Average 18%. High of 19.4 and low of 15.1
For perspective the net margins at the big three are 3.9 for Ford, 4.1 for GM, and 4.5 for Chrysler. Apple's net? 22%. Apple is next level when it comes to profits and margin; both gross and net. The car industry really has no place for next level. There's a big difference in the financial outlay from the consumer of an electronic device and a consumer of an automobile.
Got 10% for Rolls (I think for 2014, though could be for 2013), 12% for Audi (probably 2014), 18% for Porsche (recent news, probably 2014).
One thing you haven't mentioned though is that dealers of high end autos get a substantial part of the money. Lexus dealers are literal gold mines for their owners. Dealers of Lexus in the US get 8% of the sales price of the vehicle!! (just found that out) If you don't have any dealer and sell yourself, well you get to keep that money all to yourself. That makes a massive difference in your profitability : going from 12% to 20%!.
As for the rest of the numbers.
Looking at it a bit closer, it is probable that net margins in the 40K+ cars would be 10-13% range (with Porsche at 18% an outlier).
Looking at the various makers
- BMV : It is possible to be higher than 10.5% if you take out the sub 40K series 2 and X1 sales. How much higher can't be ascertained from BMV financial report.
- Mercedes : (8.5% net profit in Q3 2014). Removing the lower end B class and CLA/GLA cars (probably gets it closer to 10%)
I got 8.7B net profit /118B sales for 2013 (7.4%, not 6.5% you have, straight from financial report 2013). In Q3 2014 they had 8.5% net profit, so it seems they're quickly heading for 10% since they're having a very strong increase in profits and sales each quarter.
- Toyota
Toyota doesn't break down its net profits by division, but analyst estimates it to be 2.5B on about 19B in sales for 2014, that would be 13% net profit (they seemingly had 20%! in the early 2000s, but lost money from 2009-2012 because of the high yen).
Anyway, it seems 10-13% is truly what can be done by high end makers once they've given their 5-8% to the dealer. If you get the dealer money, it is even more profitable.
I have my doubts that existing car manufacturers are going to allow Apple to re-imagine their dashboard. That is nothing like projecting UI onto an existing infotainment system. If Apple really wants to do this and do it right I think they're going to have to build the entire widget themselves. And maybe work with an ODM on the manufacturing side. The R&D budget for first Tesla Roadster was around $125M. Apple could easily be funding R&D for this project without it being visible in their financials.
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I hope they dont make a car that would really ruin my Apple collection as I have at least 1 of apples different products and there is no way on earth I could ever afford an Apple Car hence it will break my chain go Apple gadgets so please this is not good news for mad collectors like myself
I hope they dont make a car that would really ruin my Apple collection as I have at least 1 of apples different products and there is no way on earth I could ever afford an Apple Car hence it will break my chain go Apple gadgets so please this is not good news for mad collectors like myself
That is a funny retort. How dare Apple do that, mess up your collection
A laptop and a phone are computers, Apple essentially invented the personal computer. A car is mostly a mechanical machine, if you remove all software it's still a car, if you remove all mechanical parts on the other hand..