You haven't a clue what Apple knows. And they are smart enough to hire an automotive division to build these products.
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Volkswagen CEO: We're 'Not Afraid' of a Potential 'Apple Car'
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Clearly there's no way anyone could actually hire someone who knows about these things. Once a company starts a particular business they put blinders on the executives that make them physically incapable of seeing anything else.
They should be concerned because Apple has a tendency to suck all the profit out of a sector. While they sell vehicles at a range of prices, they do not make the same profit on all of them. Their potential problem is that Apple takes a big chunk of the profitable customers, leaving the low margin volume for them.
It does not have to be mainstream (if by that you mean “shipping the most units”) to create problems for the existing manufacturers.
I have no idea if they will build a car, and no idea if they will be successful if they do, but I would be concerned with Apple entering my market, no matter which market that was.
I don't see how this is analogous to cars though. With regards to watches, I think if anything, Apple grew the market for watches and potentially made people interested in buying a luxury watch that never cared about watches at all.
The largest barrier of all to Apple selling a vehicle is the sheer mountain of regulations that doing so entails.
heads-up to those asking why car companies say that they don’t see apple as a threat: it would be stupid to admit that they believe that apple will upset the industry because that company’s top talent will start looking for new jobs right away. Rats desert a sinking ship, and who would stay at VW if the CEO said that apple is a threat to their success? Keep in mind that these posts on macrumors are written by bloggers, not educated journalists, and there is way too much opinion spread throughout these “articles” for them to be more than just entertainment.
This is a good point. I stopped wearing a watch in the early 90s because clocks became so ubiquitous it was unnecessary to actually have on on your person. I only bought an Apple watch because I read the reports of people who had one that made it clear it had way, way more value than a simple timepiece.
The irony here is that Apple doesn't know therefore they hire an automotive division to build these products. They can't do what they want to do if they don't have the right experienced people.
The TV industry is more of a PIA than most other tech. Too much to deal with in terms of licensing which is one of the reasons why Samsung stopped production of OLED and went with their own QLED. Also I hope Apple doesn't do TV's because this forum would be full of whiners daily about panel lotteries. They already do this daily on Mac screens.
I didn't say it was a prohibitive barrier, just that it was the largest one.
But not for structural reasons. Apple is the most valuable company for structural reasons, because of its profits and revenue and strong cash position. Tesla has none of that. It's P/E ratio is ridiculous. https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/11/05/is-tesla-stock-overvalued/
Because that was roughly the same statement that people made about them vis a vis phones. “They are a PC company.”
They do not own their factorit’s, but you are delusional if you think that they do not completely control their manufacturing processes, including developing new ones and new materials.
They have been working on this project for many years now, the big difference between them and others is that they rarely put their prototypes in to the market. They will iterate over and over until they decide they are ready to introduce a product or that they do not want to be in the market. Both are possible outcomes.
Unlike Tesla, Apple has no need to put a product into the market until they have all those problems resolved. Tesla had to have products in the market to survive. Apple can do all its R&D behind closed doors. That does not mean they will be successful, just that writing them off is silly.
Seeing as you're just a forum member spouting out your uneducated opinions I will go with facts. Apple is a 2 trillion dollar valuation company who has come out with new products in an already crowded market and still managed to become the #1 seller. Apple Watch! iPhone! iPad! People right here stated that Apple has no experience with the timepiece industry. Ha, it's obvious they know what they are doing. I will stick with the belief that Apple will succeed in this industry over a faceless forum member stating opinions with no facts to back them up.
It's painfully obvious you know nothing about running a corporation because companies hire experienced teams. That's how business works. Steve Jobs knew nothing about coding. He hired a team of coders. He knew nothing about how to design products. He hired an engineering design team.
Market disruption is often very difficult to adapt to for established/leading companies though, I don't necessarily think Apple will disrupt the car market in the same way as the phone market (their car is likely to be well out the reach of most I'm guessing) - but still VW should be worried about them none the less as they have everything to lose. Being blasé is never a good move for any company operating in a competitive market, and particularly when Apple are concerned. If there's one company that really can pull market disruption off it's them!
I completely agree Nokia's hardware was always very good btw, my favourite phone ever was probably the N8 and I had them right up until Microsoft ran the software into the ground with Win 10 mobile, before jumping to iPhone finally 🙂 Ultimately though they still didn't survive the upturning of the market, and I'm not so sure Android would have saved them. Nokia was good because their control of Symbian let them implement insane features and specs to their own timetable, with Android as soon as a 41MP camera is unlocked for them its unlocked for Samsung et al as well, ditto screen resolutions etc etc.
They might have survived, but they would still have been reduced to a much smaller player, and like Sony, LG, HTC they might well have ended up struggling to stay profitable. Not so much of a problem for the likes of Sony, Samsung and LG with their diversified interests, but phones was the core of Nokia so it would have been a much bigger problem for them!
The car market is already undergoing a shift with EVs and increasing automation, Apple's entry making another big splash on top of this can destabilise things further, and its companies like VW that have the most to lose. So while Apple don't necessarily pose a direct threat, VW's board of directors is very wrong if they aren't at least a bit wary to be honest.
If you want to build a car, you don't need to hire people to build cars to begin with. You need to hire people to design the industrial plan and the car, and then you have to hire people to design and build the machines and the factories which build cars, and then surround yourself with the correct supplier and educational ecosystem.
Then, you need people trained to build cars.
Building cars is one of the toughest industries on Earth. Even Elon has aknowledged this many times. Tesla are still rookies in terms of manufacturing, that's why they offer so few models, options and lackluster apparent quality.
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It’s okay. I do dig the front but the rear end of a Nissan Maxima is off putting. VW Group is still getting brutally owned by BMWs iDrive system. It’s the best in the market. VW needs more than a pretty car to do anything though.
I mean, this really is some attractive product IMO...
Thus, enter the Apple car. What will the inside of the Apple car be able to do? How will the integration between iOS and Apple car play out? What are the features you can use while not in your car with your iPhone? That’s the part that VW isn’t mentioning LOL.
The nuclear power industry would like a word with you.
Calls someone uneducated. Compares producing a smartwatch to building a car...
Not in terms of technological complexity, but in terms of manufacturing efficiency and competitiveness.
Looks like oranges and apples are the same fruit to you.