On last Friday night, Wall Street Journal published an article saying Apple is very likely going to design and produce its own cars, based on the following observation:
1. There are several hundred employees working on the project currently;
2. Apple has been in contact with Magna Steyr (an Austria OEM factory specialized in building high-end cars)
3. Apple has hired some experts who have previously worked in other major auto makers
While the above arguments strongly suggest Apple’s intention of making cars, this does not mean it is 100% committing to this matter. Whether an automobile product will be successful is not only relying on technical aspects, but also several subjective factors. Just take a look at the example of the HA-420 HondaJet, which is the attempt of an auto maker that trying to build airplanes. This takes a very long product development time, and its future is still unknown at this moment.
From the WSJ article, it looks like Apple is going for the upmarket route and considering a luxury model. So this will be another challenge on top of just building a car. A successful luxury vehicle product depends heavily on the long-term reputation of an auto maker’s history. Tesla has managed to bypass this because of its uniqueness (the world’s first luxury pure electric sports car); But Apple cannot use such strategy again since there are already a bunch of electric cars in the market now, and the iPhone/iPad aura is not transferable to automobile industry.
We will wait and see.
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