Research and development (R&D) is a good thing. It’s an investment in your business. The money didn’t go to waste. Apple learned valuable information and from that intel they decided the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze.
ColdCryptographer969
It seems that pretty much everyone anticipated the EV market to have more demand than it actually does. Apple probably recognized this and decided to hold off. Wouldn’t shock me though if in the future, you see a lot of these major electronic manufacturers making EV’s.
eidrisov
Apple is one of companies that can sink $1b into R&D and not even think about it if no results were achieved.
Also, imho, as the other commented have pointed out, R&D is always a good thing.
mockingbird-
Apple should look at Xiaomi
thelierama
And they squeezed their stocks whenever they wanted by leaking news related to car. So they didn’t technically lose any money. They used it as a leverage to keep pumping up the stocks until the next keyword (Generative AI) arrived. They will milk it till another one arrives. They are basically a phone company who try to justify their ridiculous valuation and price
SmellySweatsocks
Apple should go after Fisker and pump some of that 1 billion in R&D of its own car into The Fisker. What Fisker needs is to resolve software issues in the car. I believe this is something Apple can do.
AtomGalaxy
I guessed Apple would have just bought BMW. There seems to be a lot of brand alignment there, no?
kimguroo
Apple spent 1 billion and they should have valuable data. Apple should buy Rivian for $10 billion. Rivian needs money now so they can build GA plant. Without GA plant, they will not have growth. R2 and R3 is good EVs but I don’t think we will see significant R2 volumes within 20 months and if R3 can not be launched within 3 years, there will be much better EVs will be available. Apple bought $4 billion for beats. Why not they should buy Rivian? Selling EVs will be low margin business but Apple can bring people into Apple echo system then they can boost sales for Apple products. Apple just announced that they will buyback Apple stock for $110 billions. Spending $10 bil won’t be burden for them.
maclaren4l
Pocket change and tax right off..
sriram_sun
They just announced they are going to spend $110 billion over the next 5 years smelling their own farts (stock buybacks).
Christoph-Pf
I had a thought that Apple should take over Fisker given that the issues with the platform are software and that an experienced manufacturer is in place to produce more. As nice as the Fisker is, apple might be reluctant to put their name on it. Perhaps a partnership.
Craig_52
Not every R&D project is going to work out.
If you only researched things you knew would work we would still be in the 1970’s.
Why do you think drugs are so expensive. You can spend billions on research to find out it doesn’t work or has severe side effects. Or hope that this research can slip over to help another illness.
Even then you only have a set amount of time sell it exclusively until everybody else is allowed to sell your knockoff. So you need to recoup your research costs before that happens.
Hence why it is so hard to justify researching serious yet number limiting diseases.
nirad
Xiaomi was able to do what Apple couldn’t. Embarassing.
HipsterRig
I distinctly remember a Mac Life magazine article about a “potential” Apple branded Audio back in the early 2000s.
pineapplesuit7
For a company worth a couple of trillion dollars, a R&D of 1 Billion isn’t far fetched. A ton of things might have come out of it in terms of tech level enhancements to things like CarPlay and future CarOS integration.
MrPrevedmedved
People underestimate benefits of prototyping and working on not related to the main work technology for engineering and design teams. It’s all about exploration and creative process. Think about fashion shows. Designs looks wired and cringe, but it’s not about final results, the goal is to borrow some small pieces from the projects where you wasn’t limited by norm and tradition and include in your main work.
We all know and love CarPlay, but you can’t create something so great without understanding how to design something more than individual part. Like the whole car. Otherwise it wouldn’t be different from cheap aftermarket infotainment systems. Something you gain a lot of experience and it results in something more and sometimes you understand that you shouldn’t go further. In the end of the day apple can afford it, especially with the news about 100 bil+ stock buyback.
danyyyel
Just go to china and they can design one for you as with Xaomi.
ReadingAndThinking
For the size apple is, that they don’t have a good solid electric car is embarrassing.
18 Comments
Research and development (R&D) is a good thing. It’s an investment in your business. The money didn’t go to waste. Apple learned valuable information and from that intel they decided the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze.
It seems that pretty much everyone anticipated the EV market to have more demand than it actually does. Apple probably recognized this and decided to hold off. Wouldn’t shock me though if in the future, you see a lot of these major electronic manufacturers making EV’s.
Apple is one of companies that can sink $1b into R&D and not even think about it if no results were achieved.
Also, imho, as the other commented have pointed out, R&D is always a good thing.
Apple should look at Xiaomi
And they squeezed their stocks whenever they wanted by leaking news related to car. So they didn’t technically lose any money. They used it as a leverage to keep pumping up the stocks until the next keyword (Generative AI) arrived. They will milk it till another one arrives. They are basically a phone company who try to justify their ridiculous valuation and price
Apple should go after Fisker and pump some of that 1 billion in R&D of its own car into The Fisker. What Fisker needs is to resolve software issues in the car. I believe this is something Apple can do.
I guessed Apple would have just bought BMW. There seems to be a lot of brand alignment there, no?
Apple spent 1 billion and they should have valuable data. Apple should buy Rivian for $10 billion. Rivian needs money now so they can build GA plant. Without GA plant, they will not have growth. R2 and R3 is good EVs but I don’t think we will see significant R2 volumes within 20 months and if R3 can not be launched within 3 years, there will be much better EVs will be available. Apple bought $4 billion for beats. Why not they should buy Rivian?
Selling EVs will be low margin business but Apple can bring people into Apple echo system then they can boost sales for Apple products. Apple just announced that they will buyback Apple stock for $110 billions. Spending $10 bil won’t be burden for them.
Pocket change and tax right off..
They just announced they are going to spend $110 billion over the next 5 years smelling their own farts (stock buybacks).
I had a thought that Apple should take over Fisker given that the issues with the platform are software and that an experienced manufacturer is in place to produce more. As nice as the Fisker is, apple might be reluctant to put their name on it. Perhaps a partnership.
Not every R&D project is going to work out.
If you only researched things you knew would work we would still be in the 1970’s.
Why do you think drugs are so expensive. You can spend billions on research to find out it doesn’t work or has severe side effects. Or hope that this research can slip over to help another illness.
Even then you only have a set amount of time sell it exclusively until everybody else is allowed to sell your knockoff. So you need to recoup your research costs before that happens.
Hence why it is so hard to justify researching serious yet number limiting diseases.
Xiaomi was able to do what Apple couldn’t. Embarassing.
I distinctly remember a Mac Life magazine article about a “potential” Apple branded Audio back in the early 2000s.
For a company worth a couple of trillion dollars, a R&D of 1 Billion isn’t far fetched. A ton of things might have come out of it in terms of tech level enhancements to things like CarPlay and future CarOS integration.
People underestimate benefits of prototyping and working on not related to the main work technology for engineering and design teams. It’s all about exploration and creative process. Think about fashion shows. Designs looks wired and cringe, but it’s not about final results, the goal is to borrow some small pieces from the projects where you wasn’t limited by norm and tradition and include in your main work.
We all know and love CarPlay, but you can’t create something so great without understanding how to design something more than individual part. Like the whole car. Otherwise it wouldn’t be different from cheap aftermarket infotainment systems. Something you gain a lot of experience and it results in something more and sometimes you understand that you shouldn’t go further. In the end of the day
apple can afford it, especially with the news about 100 bil+ stock buyback.
Just go to china and they can design one for you as with Xaomi.
For the size apple is, that they don’t have a good solid electric car is embarrassing.