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by nicoburns 1741 days ago
> Why on earth would Apple want to build a car?

From a business perspective, possibly because it's a huge market and Apple has a lot of cash to invest. It's quite different to what they currently do, but they are limited in how much they can expand in their current markets so they're probably going to want to try something new. Entering the phone market was pretty ambitious too (not as ambitious, but they were a much smaller company then), and they were prepared to take their time doing it. I believe precursor forms of the iPhone were in development for over 10 years before it was actually released.

I'm not going to say that Apple will decide to manufacture cars, or that they'd be successful at it if they did decide to. But I wouldn't rule them out either.
2 comments
marticode 1740 days ago
It's a huge market in term of sales but not profits. It's a terrible market to operate in - capital intensive, cyclical, cut-throat competition with low margins. It will suck billions to produce (maybe) a tiny fraction of the profits they make on phones.
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TheOtherHobbes 1741 days ago
It's not really a standard Apple play - take a new-ish technology and commoditise it, while wrapping it in pretty design and marketing glitter.

Making pocket/rucksack electronic doodads is one thing. Cars are on a completely different level of industrialisation, supply chain management, dealer networking, service support... and existing competition.

And the plausible market capture is much smaller.

It would be like Apple trying to compete against NEC, Fujitsu, and IBM with a commercial mainframe project. They could surely get a product out. But why? And then what?

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nicoburns 1741 days ago
> It would be like Apple trying to compete against NEC, Fujitsu, and IBM with a commercial mainframe project. They could surely get a product out. But why? And then what?

I think it's quite different. The car market is huge, and it's also a consumer market. Apple would struggle to make headway with enterprises, but they're good at consumer markets.

A lot of people would have said the same at the prospect of Apple competing with Nokia, RIM, etc in the phone world. And then they came out with a product that completely blew everyone away. A car is harder for sure, but they have the money and they also have the time so I don't really see why not.

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