Your reasoning is excellent. The only problem is that Apple doesn't have sufficient drive, talent, or reputation, in the cell phone industry to actually make and sell a good cell phone. No employee wants to leave Motorola to work at Apple. No consumer wants to buy a phone made by Apple. Hopefully Steve and the gang won't blow through too much money before they accept that. They're pretty good at making computers. They might want to focus on keeping that reputation in the meantime.

I mean from a computer to a mp3 player to a phone is the same ballpark. Electronics. Moving to mechanical systems is a whole different thing.

I'm not saying it won't work out, but I don't think their plan is manufacturing cars. Maybe it's just licensing the self driving tech along with the infotainment system.

Yet somehow Elon Musk went from internet payments to building rockets and cars. Musk had zero background in rockets or cars. Remember Apple is a company that has more cash in the bank than the entire value of Tesla. It's foolish to think that Apple can't execute. Remember Apple has a long history of the last mover advantage: they take promising but cumbersomely executed tech and expand on it.

That's an interesting point and dwells in philosophical space.

Is Apple an entity with knowledge that it accumulates, develops, and applies or are people who work on and hold key positions in projects the ones that bring forth knowledge, develop it and apply it?

Is company's know-how separate from people working on it, and are people the ones who (can) bring it into the company or are people coming to the company and applying company's knowledge? What happens if either lacks - can a company bring in (group of) knowledge and can a company bring in (a group) of talent without (much) knowledge?

Cases can be made for both, I guess. So, there's no straight answer.

Yet hardware, especially dumb mechanical parts like cases, is what distinguishes Apple devices the most. They also design awful inconvenient UIs, just like auto companies.

But surely Apple can cooperate with one of the car makers? There is no indication that they are or are not working on it with someone else.

You seem to be forgetting the Moto ROKR, when Apple extracted a lot of cell phone expertize from Motorola with "iTunes collaboration" as a cover.

My impression is that building a car involves a fairly different set of skills (ie: pretty much everything except the dashboard) than Apple has.

The thought of bringing in 95% new-hires to work on a project in which your company has no experience... I mean, why?

If the primary motivation is money, without sufficient passion, good luck competing with Tesla - where they live and breath electric cars.

What were Tesla people doing before they made cars? We could have made this argument comparing Tesla to GM a few years ago.

My point about experience is that it's not Apple building this car, it's basically a new group at Apple handicapped by poor motives.

In the context of my comment, Tesla's answer to "why" was a bit more inspiring than "we need to enter a new market because our existing markets are saturated"

You're not holding it right, so you don't have signal vs. you're not sitting in it right, we're sorry everyone died.

Phones are toys. Cars kill people and are highly regulated.

I think Apple may be able to make this distinction as well. You portray them as an incompetent organization based on one defect. And, of course, car manufacturers routinely put out products with life threatening defects (i.e. Takata), so it's not like they're immune from fault either.

I'm not worried about their technical capabilities. I'm worried about a company culture that blames the customer when the product is misused or doesn't meet industry standards in some way. Things they have gotten away with in the phone and computer market will kill people in the automotive market.

I had the iPhone in question (the original 4) and it wasn't that bad. It's not like other consumer products have no glitches and always work perfectly however you use them.

Not meeting industry standards, with respect to cars, is illegal.

Mis-using vehicles while operating on the road is illegal.

Cars are far more tightly regulated both for end-users and for manufacturers.

What I'm getting at is that Apple likes to restrict their devices to work very well in the narrow designed use case, and make the non-designed use case very cumbersome.

However, people use cars across broad use cases. Some just commute, but some drive in snow, some need to ford small streams in emergencies, some need to install roof racks, and some want car-seats for infants.

I don't see Apple designing for broad use cases, because it isn't in their culture. And that will be a problem, because cars are not toys that you can choose not to use without large consequences.

    > Your reasoning is excellent.

Fwiw, I meant that sincerely. I just doubt Apple can pull it off.

Bingo.

List of people who have been or are working on Project Titan:

Jamie Carlson (ex-Tesla autopilot)

Megan McClain (ex-Volkswagen)

Vinay Palakkode (Carnegie Mellon automated driving)

Xianqiao Tong (computer vision at Nvidia)

Paul Furgale (Autonomous systems lab at SFIT)

Sanjay Massey (automated vehicles, Ford)

Stefan Weber (Bosch video based driver assistance)

Lech Szumilas (Delphi computer vision researcher)

Doug Betts (global quality lead at Fiat)

Johann Jungwirth (head of R&D at Mercedes)

Mujeeb Ijaz (Ford electrical battery cell specialist)

Nancy Sun (VP electrical engineering at electric motorcycle company Mission Motors)

Mark Sherwood (VP powertrain systems engineering at Mission Motors)

Eyal Cohen (VP software Mission Motors)

Jonathan Cohen (director of Nvidia's deep learning group)

Chris Porritt (Tesla VP of vehicle engineering and chief engineer at Aston Martin)

Alex Hitzinger (Technical Director of Porsche LMP1)

Cool.

Considering they need to answer to, try to communicate with, and rely on, a bunch of Computer execs, and moreover execs primarily interested in the project for financial reasons... that's a list of 17 employees who are at high risk of burning out.

Like Steve Zadesky before them: http://businessinsider.com/apple-steve-zadesky-quits-2016-1

Re: the Tesla names (biased article, but fun): http://marketwatch.com/story/elon-musk-heres-why-we-call-app...

> Considering they need to answer to, try to communicate with, and rely on, a bunch of Computer execs, and moreover execs primarily interested in the project for financial reasons... that's a list of 17 employees who are at high risk of burning out.

The profile of Jonathan Ive in the New Yorker last year made it pretty clear that he was interested in the car because he hates his car. But tbh: car manufacturers are primarily interested in "financial reasons" for making cars. That's called being in business.

It's interesting that your original premise has now been refuted:

> The only problem is that Apple doesn't have sufficient drive, talent, or reputation, in the auto industry to actually make and sell a good car. No employee wants to leave Tesla to work at Apple.

Apple demonstrably has talent from around the auto industry, with reputations which suggest they might be capable of building a good car, and people have left Tesla to join them.

So you're now changing your argument to "well maybe they can hire people, have the reputation, have the drive, and persuade consumers that they want to buy a car from Apple, but those employees have to talk to dumb computer execs!"

I must have forgotten all about Elon Musk's background in automotive manufacturing which makes him uniquely equipped to build an electric self-driving car compared to someone like Tim Cook.

Honestly the arguments you're making are so absurd that they border on the infantile.

Part of me wants to rebut your points, but the tone is a bit of a bummer. Life's too short.

If you make facile generalisations in lieu of a nuanced argument you should expect people to react fairly badly. I didn't even get as far as the insanity of "no consumer wants to buy an Apple car".

> No consumer wants to buy a car made by Apple.

Why not? Have you seen it?

I've seen the "Acer Ferrari One" laptop, and an Apple Car is the same kind of "wrong." I think Apple might have been able to sell a car if it had come to market five or six years ago. But these days, the world is so over-saturated with Apple (not that I mind, personally) that I don't think there'd be enough enthusiasm.

I'd be worried about the youngs though. 10$ they don't see cars the same way previous generations did. They grew up with smartphones and internet. They may be very curious about feeling the Apple feel with a vehicle.

Very true! A16Z recently had an episode where they said millennials prefer nicely integrated infotainment over horsepower or looks.

Define "nicely integrated" here, because I'm perfectly satisfied with my 3.5mm to cassette adapter.

And probably don't want to bother with dealers and such.

I might. I love what Tesla is doing but I sure hope there will be competitors (not to take anything away from Lucid, Rimac, Nissan etc). Right now, Tesla is in a league of its own and until the setbacks reported in recent months Google and Apple seemed more suited for competing with Tesla than the traditional car manufacturers and the tiny new EV companies.

> No Consumer wants to buy a car made by Apple.

[citation needed]

No consumer wanted to buy a phone from Apple either. Until they made one.