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Re:Apple cancels work on electric car, shifts team to genera... by bryanlarsen on Tuesday February 27, 2024 @03:02PM (#39529008)
An Apple that doesn't attempt something because it's hard is an Apple that is going to fade. There aren't many trillion dollar markets; I think attempting to break into cars was probably the most accessible of the trillion dollar markets to Apple. What were the alternatives? Oil? Real Estate? ...?
Re:Apple cancels work on electric car, shifts team to genera... by vikramkr on Tuesday February 27, 2024 @03:55PM (#39529796)
I don't think an apple that works by stack ranking existing high capex low margin markets and ruthlessly focusing on revenue growth is an apple that's not gonna fade. That sounds more like Amazon's vibe. Creating trillion dollar markets is more apples vibe but that's not exactly an easy thing to do - they're trying again with vision so let's see how that goes.
Re:Apple cancels work on electric car, shifts team to genera... by tippytippytango on Tuesday February 27, 2024 @03:13PM (#39529149)
Healthcare is still on the table.
Re:Apple cancels work on electric car, shifts team to genera... by rrrrrrrrrrrryan on Tuesday February 27, 2024 @03:53PM (#39529767)
Healthcare is even more heavily regulated than the auto industry.

Generally, the closer you are to "people will die if this code has a bug," the more regulated the industry.

People that don't work in a heavily regulated space vastly underestimate the constraints. It's hard enough to create a product that's beautiful and works well at a price point that the market will bear, but it's often near-impossible to do all this while also complying with all the regulations of all the markets in which you intend to sell your product.

It takes a tremendous amount of commitment, money, and time, and companies that aren't used to working within snail's pace regulatory environments quickly lose focus and the projects sputter out.

Re:Apple cancels work on electric car, shifts team to genera... by vikramkr on Tuesday February 27, 2024 @03:59PM (#39529855)
And apple successfully got wearable health monitoring in their watch to be a thing and got 510(k) clearance as a class 2 medical device etc. They're already big players in health even if not marketed that way.
Re:Apple cancels work on electric car, shifts team to genera... by x0x0 on Tuesday February 27, 2024 @03:03PM (#39529032)
A self-driving car is not something that Apple has any relevant expertise at building. They can't even make siri work well. They had zero hope to make a self-driving car.
Re:Apple cancels work on electric car, shifts team to genera... by bryanlarsen on Tuesday February 27, 2024 @03:05PM (#39529054)
That's far from true. They have world class expertise in design and supply chain management. That would transfer over to the car market a lot easier than it would to pretty much any other trillion dollar market.
Re:Apple cancels work on electric car, shifts team to genera... by x0x0 on Tuesday February 27, 2024 @05:06PM (#39530771)
What AI thing (I can't think of a single one) does Apple excel at?

Waymo and Baidu can credibly claim they have the people and track record to do this thing. Apple isn't anywhere close.

Re:Apple cancels work on electric car, shifts team to genera... by duped on Tuesday February 27, 2024 @03:27PM (#39529373)
Shipping a billion iPhones and shipping millions of cars only reasonable each other at a surface level. Apple does not have much expertise in maintaining the same supply chain and logistics, and certainly not in design.

They could hire people with the expertise, but Apple is allergic to growing engineering expertise outside of Cupertino.

Re:Apple cancels work on electric car, shifts team to genera... by jsight on Tuesday February 27, 2024 @04:13PM (#39530062)
They could hire Magna to build it for them!

Then again, that isn't necessarily working out perfectly well for Fisker.

Re:Apple cancels work on electric car, shifts team to genera... by moogly on Tuesday February 27, 2024 @07:21PM (#39532198)
I doubt that's Magna Steyr's fault though. They've produced 10k cars, but Fisker have only delivered half of those, and from everything I've seen, it seems to be well-built from a hardware standpoint.
Re:Apple cancels work on electric car, shifts team to genera... by YetAnotherNick on Tuesday February 27, 2024 @03:11PM (#39529125)
They could easily buy Volkswagen sized company from the reserve cash they have and still have quite a good amount of reserve left. I don't think car experience is something that is the limiting factor.
Re:Apple cancels work on electric car, shifts team to genera... by adra on Tuesday February 27, 2024 @03:46PM (#39529666)
Yes, let's take a very high margin business to buy a very low margin business. Our shareholders will surely appreciate that.
Re:Apple cancels work on electric car, shifts team to genera... by YetAnotherNick on Wednesday February 28, 2024 @04:32AM (#39535822)
Or let's bet 2% of valuation to create another high margin business in one of the only sector that could give us trillion dollar more. I am just saying that few 10s of billions are enough to get all the tradition car makers talent, so if they are serious about car this is not the blocker.