Apple is Making a Car - just not one for you

[miguelcoma]

This needs to be said.

Yes, Apple is making a car. Just not one you will be able to buy. After years of countless rumors and top-level hires, the press world is still uncertain about whether Apple is doing a car, a self driving OS or a ride-hailing service. Guess what, it's all of them combined! An iPod, a Phone, and an Internet Communicator.

What makes more sense for apple is to create a fleet of self-driving apple cars that people can subscribe to. Not to sell you a car for you to have in your garage.

This makes sense for the following reasons

- It's in apple's DNA that they create both the software and the hardware. Never in a million years would they spend so many resources creating an OS that then would go in someone else's car design. THere's also barely any money in it.

- They want to control the product as much as they can. This will become a part of Apple's image, and selling it to individuals only for them to customize their cars is a no-no. They can't prevent you from puting stickers on your macbook air but they won't allow you to have neon lights on your apple car for everyone to see. For god's sake, they located the charging port of the magic mouse in the bottom only so people wouldn't use it wired.

- By having their own fleet that people subscribe to, they have total control over the quality of the experience. Cars will always be clean, safe, updated and available.

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY

- It's what makes more sense environmentally. It's the future of transport. Old must become the days when a family had 2-3 cars parked in their garage that they only use a total of 45 minutes per day and when they go con vacation. It's not efficient. It's not sustainable. There are way to many cars in our cities. We can lower vehicle population and the amount of energy consumed if the same car serves several families and if when you commute to work, the car you are in stops midway to pick up a random person that happens to work near you and also needs a ride.

 

[infiniteentropy]

People in the USA in general won't take kindly to having to share a regular-sized car (not a bus or train) with random strangers.

 

[Pakaku]

cars that people can subscribe to

Ouch, that's going to be a tough sell

 

[BHHOWARD]

People in the USA in general won't take kindly to having to share a regular-sized car (not a bus or train) with random strangers.

Said the crowd when Uber was launched.

 

[E.Lizardo]

Said the crowd when Uber was launched.

Didn't know people were forced to share uber rides with random strangers.

 

[Tech198]

It's not for me.. I'll always be more happier with my 1993 car any-day over any tech based car...

Particularly when they last longer..Confirmed by the RAC.

 

[Michael Scrip]

Didn't know people were forced to share uber rides with random strangers.

Exactly... I've never had to share a ride with a stranger.

But services like Uber and Lyft are often called "Ride Sharing" apps... even though it's just you and a driver.

Maybe they should be considered "Ride Hailing" apps instead.

There are carpooling apps... but usually when you hear Uber or Lyft you're talking about requesting a ride for just you and your party.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Lyft does offer a shared-ride option (at least here in the US) - you can choose to have the car to yourself at a higher rate, or share with other passengers at a lower rate.

As to the proposition behind this post... Sharing a vehicle among a handful of families doesn’t make much sense; there are too many potential logistical issues - while one family is using the vehicle, what do the others do? There has to be a pool of vehicles available, perhaps along the lines of ZipCar. One key difference is that the autonomous vehicles will come to your door, rather than require you to go to the nearest pickup/drop off location. During commuting hours, larger-capacity shared-ride vehicles (vans, etc.) may be necessary, while at other times solo rides in smaller vehicles would be more practical.

Would Apple go into the taxi/mass transit business? Perhaps. Would it be “subscription-based?” Within certain bounds (like whether one could use it for long-distance journeys), I can’t think of a reason that wouldn’t work. It would be little different than buying a monthly transit pass.

There’s also the question of how this would fit into existing transit systems. While The USA’s sprawling suburbs (and many cities) still cry out for better mass transit options, many other places in the world do a far better job of it. Still, there’s probably opportunity of one sort or other in more places than the US.

However, I don’t see Apple entering a commodity industry - just another vehicle offering just another ride (although Apple’s media subscription services do come close to that description). I think there will have to be something distinctive about the vehicles and service in order for it to be worthy of the Apple brand. I’m not going to speculate on what that might be. As Warren Buffett likes to say, he prefers businesses that have a moat of some sort - the Apple ecosystem is a great example of a moat; it seems much harder to create a moat around a transportation business.