Volkswagen CEO Says Apple Can Mount Major Challenge With Auto Push (bloomberg.com) 38
Volkswagen AG Chief Executive Officer Herbert Diess said cash-rich technology giants invading the auto industry pose a much bigger challenge for the German manufacturer than traditional rivals like Toyota Motor. From a report: "We look forward to new competitors who will certainly accelerate the change in our industry and bring in new skills," Diess said in a LinkedIn post when asked about reports that Apple is developing a self-driving car. "The unbelievable valuation and the practically unlimited access to resources instill a lot of respect in us." [...] Diess mapped out a plan during an internal meeting last week to pit VW's huge Wolfsburg plant against Tesla's factory that's under construction outside Berlin. The electric-car maker's new site in Gruenheide is bound to stoke competition for engineers, workers and customers on VW's home turf. "I've said it before: the most valuable company in the world will again be a mobility company," Diess said. "It could be Tesla, Apple or Volkswagen." Further reading: Elon Musk Says He Once Considered Selling Tesla To Apple, Tim Cook Didn't Want To Take a Meeting
Sour grapes (Score:2)
If they hadn't blown 60-70 billions of fines for their frauds, they'd have some cash too.
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You're off by a factor of 20x, but then you were never constrained by facts. VW fines weren't all that great.
VW's total costs were far lower than your number and most of that was buybacks and investment in infrastructure which they can now exploit, not really different that Telsa spending huge amounts of venture capital on charging infrastructure while operating at massive losses to produce something they can now exploit.
Furthermore, VW is profitable AND has "some cash too", and they spent their own cash f
No User Servicable Parts Inside (Score:2)
No Sale.
Apple producing a car is dubious (Score:2)
I can't see any reason why Apple would want to produce a car, anymore than they'd want to produce dish washers or backhoes?
"the whole widget" (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the refrains you'd hear consistently from Steve Jobs
was the power of "building the whole widget". Apple *could* have sold the Mac OS to other computer manufacturers and if they had perhaps Windows never would have happened. They could have let other manufacturers use iOS in their phones, they way Google opened up Android. Alternatively, Apple could have made a bad-ass Android phone. That's not what Apple does. For better or worse, the way Apple does it is they own the whole thing, they design it all. There are advantages and disadvantages to that approach; it's the Apple approach.
Of course, just as Apple contracts Foxconn to actually manufacture the devices designed by Apple, they can make a deal with an auto manufacturer (or several) to manufacture the cars and subassemblies of the cars.
On one hand, Mac, with it's GUI, was years ahead of DOS, the competing Microsoft product. It's entirely possible that all of the computer companies would have made computers running Mac OS, if Apple had let them. Then Apple would have dominated desktop computing before Windows was even created. So thinking of that, "we build the whole widget" seems like it cost Apple a multi-million dollar opportunity. On the other hand, Apple is worth $2.2 TRILLION, so clearly their strategy works. My company is worth somewhat less than that, so I'm in no position to say I know better than Apple.
Dyac. Multi-billion, not million (Score:2)
Billion or trillion, not multi-million. :)
Stupid phone.
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"On one hand, Mac, with it's GUI, was years ahead of DOS, the competing Microsoft product. It's entirely possible that all of the computer companies would have made computers running Mac OS, if Apple had let them. Then Apple would have dominated desktop computing before Windows was even created."
That ignores the entire history of personal computers at the time. Neither Apple nor IBM considered the other to be the "competing product" and Microsoft DOS was not an interesting product for anyone nor did Micros
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> Microsoft DOS was not an interesting product for anyone nor did Microsoft even publish it themselves.
Nobody thought the dominate PC operating system was an interesting product? They didn't sell it in these boxes?:
https://www.ebay.com/b/Microso... [ebay.com]
I remember my family choosing between purchasing a Mac vs a PC (a DOS machine). My brother bragged to friends that we had a Mac (yeah a guess arrogance and Mac ownership goes back a while). They were very much competitors in the market place.
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Mac would never have been the dominant player if Jobs continued to insist on overcharging for it and limiting allowed peripherals. You could buy an IBM or clone and stick pretty much any piece of hardware in it. Not so the Mac, if it was not approved by the Steves then it would not work, and they wanted a ton of money from the manufacturer to approve any piece of hardware. It meant that the Mac didn't have hardware problems, but at the cost of severely limiting customers' choice.
Re: "the whole widget" (Score:1)
Apple copied Xerox Parc and hired some of the employees
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Yeah AFTER Windows took over the world, Apple tried a license that allow "to boot the Mac operating system using a varying combination of community-developed patches and hacks."
That was a dozen years too late. The Mac had the GUI while Microsoft had DOS. Had they licensed it then, the computing world would assuredly be very different.
Now had Apple become an OS company and Mac the main OS, perhaps they never would have made iPod and iPhone. Just as Microsoft kept trying to build a mobile OS and kept failing,
Re:Apple producing a car is dubious (Score:4, Interesting)
I can completely see Apple making software for cars. This is a logical market for them, and I've always wondered why there weren't Apple-based infotainment and navigation systems 15 years ago. Android has been in many automobiles from the get-go.
I can't see any reason why Apple would want to produce a car, anymore than they'd want to produce dish washers or backhoes?
One reason for Apple to produce a car is to keep tight control on their battery design and technology. Spending some of the hoardes of cash they are sitting on is another. Becoming more than just a software and hardware company is a third. Apple has more than enough available cash, the reputation (dserrved or not), and the technological expertise, especially in battery design, to be a viable entry into the EV market.
They will follow their proven business model. Apple vehicle(s) will be preimium priced, with carefully controlled production runs designed to not quite meet market demand, to sustain the price point, especially if vehicle design, engineering and quality control are up to the expected Apple standards.
As EV's require a lot less maintainance than ICE powered vehicles, basic required servicing could even be contracted out to third parties instead of creating a new separate service network.
Noit saying they will succeed, but, I like their chances. If they chose to play the long game, the hardware and software divisions can easily underwrite the automotive branch for as long as Apple wants.
Re:Apple producing a car is dubious (Score:4, Interesting)
Apple has always been first and foremost a hardware company. And what is a car, if not hardware ?
Nowadays, Apple builds mostly not computers, but "computer appliances", objects designed to be used to do mundane every day tasks by non-technical people. It looks to me like a car fits nicely into that definition.
Apple making cars makes a lot more sense than, say, Microsoft.
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Apple making cars makes a lot more sense than, say, Microsoft.
That doesn't mean it makes sense.
Corrections (Score:2)
I can completely see Apple making software for cars. This is a logical market for them, and I've always wondered why there weren't Apple-based infotainment and navigation systems 15 years ago. Android has been in many automobiles from the get-go.
Android Auto debuted in 2014 at Gogole I/O. [wikipedia.org]
CarPlay was announced in 2013, but then really shipped in 2014 [wikipedia.org]...
From that same article, Apple had limited car integration since iOS 4.. so also almost from the getgo.
I can't see any reason why Apple would want to produce
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I'm talking about Android as the underlying OS for the infotainment unit itself.
Kind of irrelevant to the conversation at hand though, since it doesn't imply Android has any particular advance over iOS in terms of more advanced car integration.
If that mattered Microsoft would be sitting pretty with the long term integrations BMW has used...
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I didn't claim either was more advanced than the other, just that Apple has been absent in this space while Google has been present.
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I'm saying Android is not really "present in the space" either, no more or less than Apple has been.
I couldn't even find any references to how Android was used prior to Android Auto, the thought of using Android as an automotive OS is seems more like 2017 than any earlier...
But I'm also saying that either being "present in the space" is pretty irrelevant given what a different "space" a full self driving electric car offers. Any experience to date will not really be relevant.
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MP3 Players & Phones weren't their tech though (Score:2)
I would think it's much more likely Apple is stocking up on patents in case they need to fight a patent war. Then again anyone remember this [wikipedia.org]
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"Android has been in many automobiles from the get-go."
Such as? Define "get-go". Last week?
"I can't see any reason why Apple would want to produce a car, anymore than they'd want to produce dish washers or backhoes?"
Profits? Because it's an area they think they can compete? Apple is not suited to building dishwashers and backhoes, those purchases aren't driven by ego, cars are, at least the ones Apple might build.
also an Major Challenge to 3rd party repair shops (Score:2)
also an Major Challenge to 3rd party repair shops as apple can lock out any parts being replaced in an non apple shop (even apple own parts) as each one will need to be paired to the car with an dealer only tool. (even tires / glass)
Well he should know ... (Score:3)
"We look forward to new competitors who will certainly accelerate the change in our industry and bring in new skills,"
No you don't Herr Diess. When it comes to EV tech, VW and the entire rest of the car industry has been sitting with its thumb up its collective butt for decades. Now they are chasing the bus they missed. The market is ripe for smaller rivals with good designs to capture market share from previously unassailable car industry giants who grew complacent and placed billion dollar bets on 'clean diesel', 'liquified coal' and other technological dead ends. This will be interesting to watch.
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"We look forward to new competitors who will certainly accelerate the change in our industry and bring in new skills,"
No you don't Herr Diess. When it comes to EV tech, VW and the entire rest of the car industry has been sitting with its thumb up its collective butt for decades. Now they are chasing the bus they missed. The market is ripe for smaller rivals with good designs to capture market share from previously unassailable car industry giants who grew complacent and placed billion dollar bets on 'clean diesel', 'liquified coal' and other technological dead ends. This will be interesting to watch.
Wells Fargo Routing Number SC [wellsfargo...umber.info]
No. They can't. Not alone. (Score:1)
If Apple partners with someone and is left in charge of gadgets and gizmos, sure. They could do good things.
But the entire hassle of engineering a vehicle from the ground up>
Nah.
They quite simply don't ACTUALLY want that sort of business.
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If the product does well, then you can bet they'll buy whatever companies they need to move that in-house. They did the same thing with their mobile CPUs, they started out with SoCs completely designed by Samsung, then when their products became a smash hit, they started buying up semiconductor companies. First they started by designing the SoC in-house using off-the-shelf components, and then they transitioned to a full in-house design.
Apple likes vertical integration.
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I say again.
They want to produce "neat stuff".
What they do NOT want is a prolonged purchase type of relationship.
Because that isn't "glamorous".
Excellent Straw Man! (Score:2)
"Unbelievable valuation" (Score:2)
Even if it's true that Apple's valuation is much higher than Volkswagen despite having roughly similar revenue, Volkswagen can still spend more on car R&D than Apple would ever allocate, particularly because Volkswagen has over 13 billion euros in net income that could be spent on R&D. If Volkswagen is still getting out-innovated despite their massive financial resources, I'm pretty sure that throwing more money at the problem isn't going to help.
Can't wait (Score:2)
My predictions based on other apple hardware:
You'll probably need a special tool to open the case. (Ex. Original Mac Case cracker, Pentalobular screwdrivers in the iPhone, a screen lifter for the new all-in ones)
You need to buy that tool because their kit won't boot if the $3 PRAM battery dies. (I've fixed hundreds of Macs at replacing this little battery.)
They will have excellent service manuals and service software that you can't buy legally.
You'll need a special adapter to charge it, and Apple will chan