the car business is funny,. Not like premium electronics. If it were, brands like Mercedes would sell like hot cakes. they don't as the price point versus the use is not met.
People want a CHEAP car that drives nice, but has a lot of cool electronic features.
So make the features and partner with the car makers who have the infrastructure for a low margin business.
I would be shocked if Apple were thinking of an entire car, with the exception of a concept car, which is FAR FAR away from a production car. I would think that they would be trying out idea for a lot of things they might do in cars. So is Qualcomm, so is Google, etc.
Perhaps they might partner with Tesla since they are so advanced in their car electronics, but Elon Musk would never allow his engineers to outsource their innovation.
I once tried to help Mercedes advance their car electronics, but the engineers there are so into liability and adverse technology that they almost would not even talk to me. They wanted it proven and only wanted baby steps. And then they wanted 5 years of road driven proof that it didn't do x,y,z..
Same for Visteon, same for GM.
What we have in a smartphone will take the car mfgs about 20 years to accept and implement. They are just NOW getting Bluetooth implemented fully and reliably. That has been around in phones since 2000. We have had full cross functional audio in many things, all controls, etc. Cars STILL do not have this in all models. Only in certain high end models and ONLY with a HUGE upside option payment. |
