Ex-GM CEO Says Apple Would Be Crazy To Make Cars

OEM said:
This.

Its amazing so many people hate on Apple, yet they're one of the most profitable companies in the WORLD.
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That's one of the reasons many people don't like Apple.

Yes, companies are supposed to be profitable, but not on the backs of 3rd world workers and by locking non technical people into a closed system, and then over charging them for everything.
 
collegeboy69us said:
Funny enough I've been reading up on the BMW i8 -- and things really are going that direction.

In a tech demo at a dealership - it quite literally requires 2, yes TWO people to open the hood. Through a series of pull latches and moving the hood vertical then tilting it outwards. Quoted multiple times the BMW guy says "there's absolutely zero reason the customer needs to be under the hood". Funny enough he was giving tips on how to treat the hood once opened, how the hood will warp itself after sitting in the open position for too long.

Imagine buying an apple car where the batteries are sealed, locked, whatever, something goes wrong electrical wise? You must have been driving it wrong, buy a new car.
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This is what is wrong with many products today, especially Apple products. They are designed to make it difficult if not impossible to service, repair or upgrade. Not just sealed phones or tablets, but the batteries are glued in making it difficult to replace them without damaging the device.
Most Macs no longer have socketed memory, so you need to be sure you buy enough memory to last for however long you own the machine.

Give me an SD card, a replaceable battery (even if I need to remove a couple screws), and if it's a desktop/laptop, upgradable memory & drive. I've upgraded the memory and drives on most the older laptops at work. Much cheaper to upgrade the ram and get another 2-3 years out of one than to buy a replacement. No that SSD's are getting so cheap I might be able upgrade the laptop and use then for even longer.
 
nutzo said:
This is what is wrong with many products today, especially Apple products. They are designed to make it difficult if not impossible to service, repair or upgrade. Not just sealed phones or tablets, but the batteries are glued in making it difficult to replace them without damaging the device.
Most Macs no longer have socketed memory, so you need to be sure you buy enough memory to last for however long you own the machine.

Give me an SD card, a replaceable battery (even if I need to remove a couple screws), and if it's a desktop/laptop, upgradable memory & drive. I've upgraded the memory and drives on most the older laptops at work. Much cheaper to upgrade the ram and get another 2-3 years out of one than to buy a replacement. No that SSD's are getting so cheap I might be able upgrade the laptop and use then for even longer.
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Easy reparability is certainly great but I don't think it tends to be high on the list of attributes that most people desire in a computing device. Apple's reputation is built on reliability, "It just works." Not "It just works but if something goes wrong it's easy to fix."
 
Just because there have been a few sightings, it does not mean that Apple is going to get into the auto business. I would speculate (which is what everyone else is doing - Apple has not said a word on what they are doing) they are testing auto software, mapping updates, or similar.
Like other people said, if they were going to enter the auto market, they would more than likely acquire a company (perhaps Tesla). But, I find this way out there. This seems too far out of their area of concentration to me. (Again, I am just speculating. I have no clue what products are coming out.)
 
The auto industry is a whore's market with more R&D and experience behind it than people realize and I doubt Apple is stupid enough to try a venture into it. Everyone's talking Tesla but let's remember that Tesla has been around since 2003 and still isn't turning a profit on its own with Elon Musk himself not expecting to be fully sustainable until 2020. They are a still a risky venture given that they aren't a diverse company and they are in a market without competition. A lot of eyebrows were raised when they opened their patent portfolio and nobody cared because it's nothing anyone hasn't known for years. Tesla isn't anywhere close to being out of trouble yet and I'm sure Apple knows that.
 
Not nearly as crazy as the US government was to bail out this piece of crap company producing deathmobiles.

I hate Apple and I would easily buy a car from them over GM.
 
Who is to say that an Apple car would retail at a low margin.

They'd probably just price it with their normal ridiculous Apple Tax rate, and the brainwashed Apple faithful would come regardless.
 
nutzo said:
That's one of the reasons many people don't like Apple.

Yes, companies are supposed to be profitable, but not on the backs of 3rd world workers and by locking non technical people into a closed system, and then over charging them for everything.
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But people who say this neglect to realize pretty much every other competitor is using those same factories. Should it matter that Apple figured out how to get a 25% profit out it, and everyone else is lucky to get 3%? I
 
Ryokurin said:
But people who say this neglect to realize pretty much every other competitor is using those same factories. Should it matter that Apple figured out how to get a 25% profit out it, and everyone else is lucky to get 3%? I
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They "figured out" how to make better profits by charging more and playing hardball with suppliers in many cases. Nothing wrong with that pen se but it's not like Apple has created so intrinsic efficiencies that increase profit margin. As you point out, same factories.
 
heatlesssun said:
They "figured out" how to make better profits by charging more and playing hardball with suppliers in many cases. Nothing wrong with that pen se but it's not like Apple has created so intrinsic efficiencies that increase profit margin. As you point out, same factories.
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Yeah, Apples model has worked more by top end growth, and extreme pressure using economies of scale on their suppliers, rather than bottom line efficiencies, and it only works because their customers don't seem to care that they get the same hardware, yet pay as much as 2 times as much for it in some cases.

Any company would be overjoyed to have such ignorant blind devotees.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041436882 said:
Who is to say that an Apple car would retail at a low margin.

They'd probably just price it with their normal ridiculous Apple Tax rate, and the brainwashed Apple faithful would come regardless.
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It's marginal utility. A few hundred extra dollars is one thing for a cell phone or tablet, but to have similar margins with a vehicle it would be tens of thousands. Perhaps on the luxury end, but volume on that end is so much lower it still wouldn't be that lucrative.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041437008 said:
I wouldn't touch a car from any of the big three with a 39.5 foot pole, but I also would never buy an Apple car.
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Like every manufacturer they have good and bad models.
 
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