[mikeash]

They laughed at Einstein, but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

A smartphone was solidly within Apple's expertise in 2007. It's a small consumer electronics device (iPod, Mac) with a graphical UI (Mac OS X). Apple had tons of experience building (or more accurately, outsourcing the building of) small electronics. What was tricky about the iPhone was the RF stuff, getting the carriers to cooperate, and cutting data usage to squeeze into the crappy data plans available. Except RF stuff is nearly off-the-shelf, and Apple cut the Gordian Knot for the other two items by partnering with an underdog carrier in exchange for unlimited data plans.

A car is far outside Apple's expertise. Are they going to outsource it to Foxconn like they do with the iPhone, and ship them across the Pacific? Doesn't seem feasible. Will they buy or build their own factory? Doable, but totally new for them. What about sales, service, and support? The iPhone was able to use Apple's extensive network of existing retail stores for that, but cars need garages and mechanics.

Obviously, it can be done. Tesla pulled it off with far less. But there's plenty of room for Apple to crash and burn, too. (Figuratively, one hopes.)

[pmontra]

> Are they going to outsource it to Foxconn like they do with the iPhone, and ship them across the Pacific? Doesn't seem feasible.

There is the example of this Italian car sharing service http://www.sharengo.it/

They designed their own car and a Chinese company built it.

[mikeash]

Cool! Do you know who built it and how many they're making?

[pmontra]

To answer your question I googled the Italian web and found more details than I knew. The story is a little different and I couldn't put together all the pieces of the puzzle.

According to the sources the cars are either designed in Italy and made in China or designed by a Chinese company with Italian designers (not only the style, but at least the navigation system and battery management).

I found some references to the Xin Da Yang Electric Vehicles and the Shandong Xindayang Electric Vehicle companies, which should be part of the same group anyway. The model is called ZD1 and it's a custom version of the iCar0 http://greengomoving.it/prodotti/ That car was sold in Italy at 13 k EUR but didn't sell enough. The business was relaunched as car sharing and it's doing well enough judging from the number of cars I see around. I plotted the invoice numbers against time and it's a line, which could be OK given it's limited to a few cities and they have competitors. They could already have saturated the market unless they open in other cities.

I think they have at most 2000 cars in Italy but the Chinese companies could be making more. I found it on alibaba https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-eec-l7e-80-elec... They say up to 5000 cars per month, unit price up to 8000 USD.

Sources, all of them in Italian

http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/motori/2015-05-21/share-ngo-p...

http://www.veicolielettricinews.it/sharengo-il-primo-car-sha...

http://www.alvolante.it/news/milano-il-car-sharing-elettrico...

[mikeash]

Awesome, thanks so much for all that information. Maybe I'm too pessimistic about the possibility of outsourced car manufacturing after all. Seeing a car on freakin' Alibaba sure gives me a different perspective on it. Apple would need a whole different kind of scale, of course, but that's something the Chinese do well.

[pmontra]

Not necessarily. Apple could sell those cars or operate a car sharing service. In the latter case they need to build only a fraction of the cars. Ideally we'll get a self driving car that never stops, going from customer to customer like a cab. That would reduce the number of cars even further.

Whatever thwy'll be I wonder if we'll be able to operate those cars with an Android phone or they'll be iPhone only.

[baddox]

> Are they going to outsource it to Foxconn like they do with the iPhone, and ship them across the Pacific? Doesn't seem feasible.

I have no idea, but they seem to be pretty good at outsourcing manufacturing where it makes sense to do so. I don't see that as a significant blocker to an Apple automobile.

[martin_bech]

Most of Apples revenue is outside the US now. But i suspect they will do, what Tesla is planning, a factory in each major market.

[tpowell]

I wouldn't underestimate them with their war chest and supply chain expertise, and don't forget their roots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSj6kvv7_Sg

[revelation]

That's pretty.. mundane.

[ams6110]

Jobs built a factory. The NeXT computer was made there and the factory was reportedly state-of-the-art.

Of course Jobs is gone but I would guess there are others still at Apple that were involved so that it might not be totally new to them.

[declan]

I visited the NeXT factory in Fremont, and it certainly seemed state of the art to me at the time.

NeXT Computer Inc. eventually became NeXT Software Inc. and ceased manufacturing hardware. That was 23 years ago. I'd be surprised if any significant presence from that manufacturing team remained in Cupertino today.

[protomyth]

I was under the impression due to cost and poor sales, they actually had alternate arrangements to build the NeXT products after a while. It was a nice video and launch story though.

[ams6110]

You're right they did get out of the hardware business totally in the later years. But still, they build an an incredible factory that was widely praised.

[protomyth]

I'm not talking about getting out of the hardware business.

"The factory that Jobs had configured to produce 10,000 computers every month produced hundreds every month. Because of the low volume, human labor was cheaper than maintaining the automated equipment."

http://lowendmac.com/2013/next-years-steve-jobs-before-trium...

[ams6110]

My point was that he built a great factory. That is not diminished by his inability to sell the product.

But, he is gone and as others note it was a long time ago. It's probably not very relevant, in retrospect.

[mikeash]

In the entire life of the company, that factory built about as many computers as Tesla built cars just last year. And Tesla is a tiny player. This experience hardly seems relevant. Modern Apple is built on NeXT's software, but I don't think there's much if anything of their manufacturing in there.

[ams6110]

You are probably right. Doesn't seem that long ago to me but it really has been decades.

[mikeash]

I know what you mean. I often feel like the state of things in the 90s (when I really started with computers in earnest) is "how things are" and all the changes since then are recent developments.

Looking more recently, Apple does have their own factory in the US to make the Mac Pro. I wonder if any of that was intended as a testbed for in-house manufacturing in general.