[simonh]

The car industry is about to go through two completely independent revolutions simultaneously. The move to electric power trains, and self-driving. This is the perfect time for an outsider to enter the market because the incumbents have no advantage in these fields relative to a newcomer. In fact as fundamentally hardware companies they have the same issues with figuring out how to develop first class software that the phone companies did.

Apple has huge expertise in both these areas. Not electric motors sure, but electronics design and manufacturing in general and specifically battery technology on the power train side and software on the self-driving side.

But the key to their potential is software. I think the main reason for Apple's success is their super high quality OS core, code libraries and software development tool chain combined with one of the greatest software engineering culture and talent pools on the planet. They have exploited this advantage ruthlessly ever since the 90s. It underlies the success of all their best products - even the iPod if you bear in mind that iTunes was built on these core advantages. Yes iTunes is a mess now, but it made the success of the iPod possible.

The key to success in the coming car revolution will be software. Computers will control and orchestrate every aspect of the internal operation of the vehicle, and that's before you even get to external operations with self-driving. Only Microsoft has the depth of software development competence and the technology platform resources to compete with Apple in this area, but for whatever reason they just don't seem to be able to get their act together when it comes to engineering complete product stacks rather than individual technologies.

[rgbrenner]

the incumbents have no advantage in these fields relative to a newcomer.

Except their distribution network, reputation/brand value, and marketing reach. And their IP in the non-powertrain components. And their manufacturing knowledge which makes the cars more reliable.

And they can fund the move to electric (or whatever) using existing profits. Whereas any newcomer has to raise money and spend time doing all of these things.

While this is probably the best time for someone to attempt to do those things.. the incumbents definitely aren't starting from scratch.. they still have advantages.

[splouk]

Except Apple would already have reputation/brand value as well. Perhaps even more than, say Ford, since they are known as a technology company, and the cars of the future are electric and self-driving.

[simonh]

You are absolutely correct, it will be a tough challenge, but if anyone is ever going to it, it's now.

[kamaal]

>>specifically battery technology on the power train side and software on the self-driving side.

Neither actually.

Battery technology for cars is a very different area of work compared to making battery for phones.

And writing self driving car algorithms isn't exactly the same designing UI on the FreeBSD OS.