edatoakrun
Well-known member
Hard to say what the odds are of Apple actually entering the BEV market.
But anyone "holding $178 billion in cash" should be taken seriously, IMO.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/apples-titan-car-project-to-challenge-tesla-1423868072" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
But anyone "holding $178 billion in cash" should be taken seriously, IMO.
Apple Gears Up to Challenge Tesla in Electric Cars
IPhone Maker Has 100s Working on Design of a Minivan Like Vehicle
Apple Inc. has revolutionized music and phones. Now it is aiming at a much bigger target: automobiles.
The Cupertino, Calif., company has several hundred employees working secretly toward creating an Apple-branded electric vehicle, according to people familiar with the matter. The project, code-named “Titan,” initially is working on the design of a vehicle that resembles a minivan, one of the people said.
An Apple spokesman declined to comment.
Apple ultimately could decide not to proceed with a car. In addition, many technologies used in an electric car, such as advanced batteries and in-car electronics, would be useful to other Apple products, including the iPhone and iPad.
Apple often investigates technologies and potential products, going as far as building multiple prototypes for some things that it won’t ever sell. Any car would take several years to complete and obtain safety certifications.
But the size of the project team and some of the people assigned to it indicate that the company is serious, these people said....
Building cars are capital intensive, costing cost hundreds of millions of dollars for design, tools and production and certifications. Auto makers also must help ramp up a supply network for the thousands of components that go into a vehicle.
Battery-powered cars add another dimension. Tesla Motors Inc., for instance, has seen losses widen amid rising expenses to build an electric sport-utility vehicle. It expects to spend $1.5 billion on capital expenditures and R&D in 2015.
Mr. Cook approved the car project almost a year ago and assigned veteran product design Vice President Steve Zadesky to lead the group, the people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Zadesky is a former Ford Motor Co. engineer who helped lead the Apple teams that created the iPod and iPhone.
Mr. Zadesky was given permission to create a 1,000-person team and poach employees from different parts of the company, one of the people familiar with the matter said. Working from a private location a few miles from Apple’s corporate headquarters in Cupertino, the team is researching different types of robotics, metals and materials consistent with automobile manufacturing, the people said...
Manufacturing a car is enormously expensive. A single plant usually costs well over $1 billion and requires a massive supply chain to produce the more than 10,000 components. Elon Musk , the chief executive of electric-car maker Tesla, said last fall that it is “really hard” to make a car, as the company struggled to ramp up production on its Model S sedan.
The expense is a barrier to entry to many potential competitors, but would be less of a hurdle for Apple, which reported holding $178 billion in cash as of Dec. 27...
http://www.wsj.com/articles/apples-titan-car-project-to-challenge-tesla-1423868072" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;