Text | Value Institute
2021 is the outbreak period of new energy vehicles. According to media statistics, global new energy vehicle sales reached 4.256 million in the first three quarters of last year, an increase of 139% year-on-year, far exceeding the 3.24 million units in 2020, and the penetration rate also reached 7.6%. Driven by the head manufacturer Tesla, the sales of new energy vehicles in the United States in the first three quarters of last year increased by more than 100% year-on-year, and the growth rate was very amazing.
Seeing Tesla soaring all the way, coupled with the continued prosperity of the entire new energy vehicle market, Apple, as a generation of technology overlords, could not hold back and announced the next car early. But in the past year, Apple's car-making plan has not developed as smoothly as expected.
Recently, foreign media broke the news that Apple service has been more than 7 years, and Joey Bass, who previously served as the head of software engineering for Apple's automotive team, has recently left his job to switch to Meta. You know, Bath is not the only executive of Apple's car-making team that has been poached recently, and brain drain is not the only challenge facing Apple's car-making plan.
To become Tesla's challenger in new energy vehicles, Apple still has a lot of homework to do.
"Robbed" car-making talents, why can't Apple keep it?
As mentioned earlier, Joey Bath is just the latest exponent of the wave of executive departures from Apple's automotive business, and isn't the only one. Public information shows that in the past year, Apple's auto team has lost 7 executives, and the speed of talent flow is amazing.
In February 2021, Benjamin Lyon, a start-up member of Apple's automotive team, joined space company Astra as chief engineer; in June, David Scott, head of the automotive robotics team, and Jamie Victor of the autonomous driving safety and supervision team left, pushing the wave of executive departures to a climax. By September, Ford announced the poaching of Doug Field, Apple's senior vice president and head of automotive projects, and Field had become the highest-ranking employee in the wave of departures from Apple's automotive business unit.
In the second half of the year, Kevin Lynch, who succeeded Field as head of the automotive department, was once seen as a new hope for Apple's car-making plan, and Cook has repeatedly expressed his expectations and appreciation for the former in public. But I didn't think that after entering 2022, the brain drain of Apple's car-making team continued, and Kevin Lynch did not reverse the decline.
Looking back at the construction process of Apple's car-making team in the past two years, we can find that this is a process of continuously digging up other people's walls and feet at a high salary - being counter-digging - and rebuilding the team. In the view of the Value Institute, the reason why apple car teams have such rapid turnover and loss of personnel can be attributed to two factors: too shallow qualifications, and the industry is too involuted.
According to official information, Apple launched a car-making project code-named "Titan Project" as early as the beginning of 2015, but the crazy expansion of the business team is still the last two years. In other words, the development speed of Apple's automobile business is not fast, which also reflects its poor industry resource accumulation - such as networking, cooperative enterprise resources, etc.
Because of this, when Cook intends to speed up the car-making plan and frantically expand the car-making team in 2020, Apple can only grab people from various competitors , especially Tesla , through high salaries.
According to the data displayed on LinkedIn, as of the beginning of 2020, nearly 40% of the more than 1,200 employees in Apple's automotive business team have Tesla work backgrounds, and the vast majority of them have jumped directly from Tesla to Apple.
But the problem is that Apple can use high salaries to bring these technical and management talents under its command, and other competitors can follow suit.
The high-paid recruited "mercenaries" lack a sense of identification with Apple's corporate culture and cannot integrate into Apple's internal ecological environment, which is a topic that foreign media constantly mention when singing about Apple's car-making business. Judging from the current extremely high brain drain rate, the relevant public opinion may not be empty.
Apple's attraction to high-end research and development and technical personnel in consumer electronics is almost unique in the industry. And Apple can have such a big attraction, in addition to the treatment and sense of work achievement, high-end talents' recognition of Apple's corporate culture, yearning - and even the worship of Jobs, a genius, are important factors.
But switching to the car-making track, the number of Apple followers, I am afraid, is not in the same order of magnitude as Musk's number of believers.
Of course, the Value Institute believes that the job-hopping of top talents in the industry, such as Joey Bass and Doug Field, is more due to practical factors: they are too sought-after, and others are giving too much.
According to the recruitment information on Apple's official website, throughout 2020, Apple SPG (special project team, recognized by foreign media as Apple car team) released a total of more than 300 positions, mainly distributed in the field of artificial intelligence such as road safety and robotics, as well as automation, quality engineering, motor battery research and development and other automotive software and hardware fields.
However, due to the vigorous development of the new energy vehicle and intelligent driving industry in the past two years, the core talents of the above positions are exactly the focus of the industry's competition.
Taking Doug Field as an example, we can briefly review his job-hopping journey. He joined Apple in 2008, then moved to Tesla as a senior engineer responsible for the core technology development of the Model 3, and then returned to Apple as the head of the automotive business until the end of last year to jump to Ford , which is where he began his career in 1987.
It can be seen that For more than a decade, Doug Field has been bouncing back and forth in the circle of several leading auto companies, and is a talent that major companies are competing for.
In fact, in addition to Apple, Tesla, Ford, General Motors and other new and old car giants also continue to have the problem of executive loss and core talents being poached, but they can rely on strong talents and technical reserves to carry these crises, and Apple with shallow roots will inevitably hurt their bones.
From this perspective, the Value Institute believes that the brain drain is just a mirror of Apple's car-making business moving forward - due to the lack of industry foundation, Apple will encounter more trouble in the research and development of automotive chips and autonomous driving/intelligent driving core technologies, as well as the construction of the supply chain.
Self-developed chips and building a supply chain, the two major problems of Apple's car manufacturing
Among all the difficulties faced by the car manufacturing business, chip research and development and supply chain construction are undoubtedly the most difficult problems.
Let's look at the chip problem first. At the third quarter of last year's earnings report, Cook bluntly said that Apple has felt the pressure of a shortage of chip supply, and directly caused more than $6 billion in economic losses. More importantly, even in the dominant consumer electronics field, Apple chips can not achieve the independent research and development of all chips, and some core technologies are still subject to people.
In view of this, after previously and Qualcomm were involved in various disputes over the supply of 5G baseband chips, Apple made up its mind to develop its own baseband chips. Coupled with the M1 chip, which has always been regarded as Apple's core product, Apple has spent a lot of resources and energy on the research and development of consumer electronics chips, and whether the research and development of automotive chips will be delayed has been the focus of external attention.
According to Bloomberg's revelations, the core research and development of the first-generation Apple Car chip processor is apple's silicon engineering team - the team is also the main research and development team of iPhone, iPad and Mac processors. With the core team divided and the technical executives leaving one after another, we can't help but feel a little worried about the technology development process of the Apple car team.
Due to Apple's strict secrecy of the car-making plan, it is difficult for us to learn about the latest progress of its car chip research and development from other sources in addition to the official statement. Of course, the pervasive American media will still provide us with some valuable information from time to time.
In November last year, Bloomberg broke the news that Apple had successfully developed its own high-computing car chip and would test it in the California test fleet. However, according to Bloomberg's report, Apple may launch its first driverless car as early as 2025, more than three years away.
In the three-year period, there are still many variables for Apple to catch up with new energy vehicles and intelligent car opportunity windows.
Second, let's look at the state of the supply chain.
In the field of consumer electronics, Apple, which single-handedly created the myth of "fruit chain" and is worshipped as a god by suppliers, is not as smooth as imagined in the construction of the automotive supply chain.
On the one hand, traditional car companies generally have no intention of cooperating with Apple to build cars, resulting in the latter being able to build production and supply chains from scratch, which is much more difficult.
At the beginning of the establishment of the "Titan Project", BMW, Daimler and other auto giants have refused Apple's cooperation invitation, indicating the vigilance and resistance of traditional car companies to this intruder. According to the New York Times, since the announcement of the car, Apple has negotiated cooperation with more than a dozen traditional car companies, in addition to the aforementioned BMW, Daimler, as well as Nissan, BYD, McLaren have not accepted the olive branch handed by Apple.
On the other hand, as with the talent battle mentioned earlier, the upstream production suppliers of high-quality new energy vehicles are also scarce resources, and Apple rushes to enter the market at its hottest time, naturally facing great pressure of resource competition. For example, as the global leader in electric vehicle batteries, the Ningde era did not go to the United States to build a factory at apple's request, and the cooperation plan between the two sides has long been stranded.
In the final analysis, it is still because the production capacity of new energy vehicles is in the climbing stage, and major suppliers such as Cataline Times have been "breaking orders" production. In the second half of last year, catheter era and Tesla renewed their contract for three years, and in the past three years, more than 90% of its batteries are supplying the domestic market, and Apple's big cake is tempting Ningde era is really impossible to swallow.
But we don't need to completely lose confidence in Apple's car. After all, the above problems, Tesla's initial stage has also encountered, and Apple still has some gratifying progress in the construction of the supply chain. According to foreign media reports, in 2021, Apple executives have visited South Korea many times to discuss cooperation with battery giants such as LG and SK, and Japan's Panasonic is also expected to supply Apple.
However, in the view of the Value Research Institute, in the face of the shortage of supplier resources in the new energy vehicle industry and the dominance of the seller's market, Apple may need to change the high-pressure management model of suppliers in the field of consumer electronics and become more open.
Tesla handles this quite cleverly. By 2021, the number of Tesla's officially certified tier 1 and tier 1 suppliers exceeded 600, tripling from before the 2018 production capacity explosion. However, for supplier management, Tesla did not take excessive intervention, but continued to expand its supply chain team by focusing on supporting high-quality suppliers + open supply system.
Tesla's softer and more open supply chain management model may be a worthy object for Apple.
Want to overtake Tesla in corners? Apple wants to grasp two main lines
Through the analysis of the previous article, I believe that everyone can also see that from the all-round competition of talent, technology, supply chain to the market, when it comes to Apple's car, it is always around Tesla.
In the view of the Value Institute, whether from the perspective of industrial development trends, market and performance, or from the perspective of policy environment and growth potential, new energy vehicles seem to be more worthy of expectation than consumer electronics - which determines that Apple must step out of the comfort zone and face Tesla head-on.
For example, we can compare the performance growth of Apple and Tesla in the past two years. According to Wind statistics, tesla has entered a stage of volume growth with the model 3 price reduction in 2018 and the successful mass production of Tesla Gigafactory as the dividing line. The data shows that Tesla's 2018-2019 Tesla sales compound annual growth rate of more than 41%, Model 3 has become a real phenomenon-level model, with more than 300,000 units to become the highest sales of new energy vehicles in 2019.
In history, Tesla's current performance is similar to Apple's in 2008-2009. At that time, the average annual compound growth rate of iPhone sales exceeded 100%, and Apple's stock price and market value entered a period of rapid growth, and the market share rate steadily increased to about 16%. However, after 2016, the smartphone market shrank, Apple's consumer electronics business entered the era of stock competition, and mobile phone shipments once fell into negative growth.
In the face of such a situation, you can say that Apple is ten years ahead of Tesla, or tesla has a better future decade than Apple. But from Cook's point of view, the decline in the consumer electronics market and the rise of new energy vehicles are an indisputable fact, and Apple cannot sit still.
As mentioned earlier, Apple has encountered a wall in the supply chain and the construction of talent teams, reflecting the huge differences in the development and management models of the two industries, which are the links that Cook and his team need to strengthen. In the view of the Institute of Value, with reference to Tesla's history, if Apple wants to create a product that redefines new energy vehicles as it did when it launched the iPhone, it must grasp two main lines - to create a closed ecosystem and die smart software technology.
On the one hand, software redefines hardware and uses software technology as the driving engine of the automotive industry, which is an industry trend that cannot be ignored in the past two years. The most direct evidence is that upstream AI chip manufacturing companies and software platforms play an increasingly important role in the automotive industry chain.
According to the data of the US Road Safety Commission at the end of the year, more than 90% of the serious motor vehicle traffic accidents in 2021 are related to human error, which makes the outside world look forward to the future of intelligent assisted driving systems. From this perspective, we may also understand the impact of Joey Bass's job-hopping on Apple.
But for Apple, the good news is that Tesla has not gained an overwhelming advantage in autopilot software technology, and the competitive landscape of the entire market is still quite open.
According to sources, after Kevin Lynch took charge of the car-making business, Apple has been focusing on basic software and driving technology. As the backbone of apple watch R & D team, Kevin Lynch has no automotive business, but has a software technology research and development background, and may indeed be the most suitable leader of Apple's automotive business unit at this stage.
On the other hand, since it comes to the importance of technology and software, it is necessary to mention Apple's old roots in the field of consumer electronics - creating a closed and exclusive ecology is the key to building a moat, extending the service boundary and increasing revenue sources.
At present, Tesla has been groping in ecological construction and gradually trying to pay for business models. The newly upgraded 10.0 software system in October 2019, as well as the previously launched Robotaxi, have achieved good results. At present, Tesla has begun to charge service/subscription fees for software services such as advanced connectivity and full self-driving, which is the same as the profit model of Apple's iOS ecosystem.
Of course, Tesla's self-driving technology and auxiliary software ecology are not yet mature, leaving Apple with the opportunity to catch up. In the view of the Value Institute, subverting tradition is the key to Tesla's rise. In other words, if Apple wants to catch up with or even surpass Tesla, it cannot follow behind it, but needs to overtake through bolder technological innovation curves.
Write at the end
In November last year, Cathie Wood, a Wall Street investment tycoon and head of the Ark Fund and a well-known "wooden sister", revived the acquisition rumors of Apple and Tesla in an interview with the media. "Wood Sister" believes that Tesla in the Model 3 capacity expansion is blocked, eager to find external capital injection, Apple should be in the pocket, Musk also once took the initiative to contact Cook, but the latter's hesitation led Apple to miss this acquisition opportunity in vain.
Today, Apple, in turn, has become Tesla's catch-up, and the "transposition" of the two once again proves the vagaries of the business world.
It is worth mentioning that for the revelation of "Wooden Sister", Cook has responded indirectly. Speaking at The New York Times' DealBook summit late last year, he said:
"I have a lot of admiration and respect for Musk and the company he's built, but I feel good about where we are today. Although I don't remember having contact with Musk about the acquisition. ”
In fact, whether Apple can build a car successfully or not will pose a threat to Tesla in the future, Cook may have no bottom in his heart. But in the face of repeated questions from reporters, he is still full of confidence in Apple's development - which is enough to show that Cook will not easily "submit to Tesla or Musk", and Apple will continue to spend money and die.
Objectively speaking, the potential of the new energy vehicle market has not yet been fully released, such as China, Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia and other important automotive markets, new energy vehicle penetration rate is not high. Now it depends on whether Apple, which is facing multiple difficulties and has a serious loss of technical talents, can regroup as soon as possible and accelerate its own car-making plan.