Last night, Guo Mingqi, an analyst at Tianfeng International Securities, broke out on Twitter:
The Apple auto team has been disbanded for some time. If it wants to mass-produce cars in 2025, Apple needs to reorganize its team in 3 to 6 months.
This news has attracted widespread attention in China, especially in the case of the news that Apple's two most important foundry companies in the world, Foxconn and Lixun Precision, have entered the automotive industry not long ago.
Apple may not give up the car project easily
For Apple, the smart electric vehicle project will not be easily abandoned. Whether it is in terms of technical reserves or funds, Apple's resources will not be lost to the new domestic car-making forces. In terms of brand appeal, even if the post-Jobs era innovation is relatively weak, the annual Apple new product launch is still expected by global consumers.
In this case, Apple has no reason at all to land a car because of insufficient resources. As for the reason why the car has not been launched to date, we guess that it is more the result of its own control of the rhythm of the project, and there will not be too many external forces.
We speculate that the biggest reason why Apple has not advanced its car project quickly may be that it wants to launch a competitive model.
At present, the homogenization of global electric vehicle products is becoming more and more serious.
It is no exaggeration to say that everyone in the product design stage will take Tesla as a benchmark or learn from some Tesla's design elements, and then seek to surpass Tesla in some specific indicators, but few car companies can develop models that completely subvert or fully catch up with Tesla.
As Apple, the reason why it can stand at the top of the global smart phone is that the iPhone has completely subverted Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, and other predecessors of the traditional mobile phone industry. That's why we're speculating that Apple may not be able to easily introduce similar models to the market until they achieve high-level self-driving technology or bring other disruptive driving experiences.
After all, unlike many other new car companies, Apple does not have the pressure and urgency to launch electric vehicles to the market and seek project profitability in the short term. The strategic question is how to launch a stunning product in the smart electric vehicle market when the smartphone and other smart consumer electronics markets are gradually saturated, so as to find a new business growth point for the company and ensure that the company's business can achieve sustainable growth in the future.
Fruit Chain Company is ready for OEM
On mobile phones and other consumer electronics, Apple adopts the asset-light model of oem.
As two important companies on the fruit chain, Foxconn and Luxshare Precision have invariably laid out in the automotive industry.
In addition to joining hands with Taiwan's yulon automobile, Foxconn has released a strongly expandable pure electric platform and a number of pure electric vehicle models, including a bus, and has also entered the supply chain system of many vehicle companies through the acquisition of some parts companies. The acquisition dates back to 2005's acquisition of Aetna Electric, one of Taiwan's four largest automotive wiring harness factories.
As for Lixun Precision, it spent 10 billion yuan to take over part of Chery Automobile's shares from Qingdao Wudaokou, becoming Chery's fourth largest shareholder and establishing a joint venture with Chery New Energy. At present, Lixun Precision has not yet officially announced that it will personally build a car, but there is no doubt that with the help of Chery's system capabilities, Lixun Precision's car-making capabilities have been possessed.
As Apple's most important foundry company, Foxconn and Luxun Precision's important strategic initiatives will more or less match Apple's strategy. For these two companies, although the demand for transformation is not small, it is not a wise choice to rush into the field of smart electric vehicles without better planning and sufficient preparation.
If Foxconn has been laying out the auto parts industry for nearly 20 years, and has already shown its ambition to deeply cultivate the automotive industry, then companies like Luxun Precision cannot fail to see the difficulties encountered by Evergrande, Baoneng, LeTV and Gree in the process of car manufacturing.
Considering the profitability of Chery Automobile and the huge investment in the new four modernization technology in the later period, Luxun Precision invested 10 billion yuan, not only hoping to participate in Chery's mixed reform, but also hoping to have further chemical reactions with Apple's large customer in the future.
There have been rumors before that Apple hopes to seek a number of companies, including Hyundai, to oem for it, but none of them have finally taken shape.
From the perspective of traditional OEMs, even if apple OEM can earn a lot of OEM income, it will not help its own brand value, and even weaken its right to speak in the industrial chain.
But on the other hand, Foxconn or Luxshare Precision, as long as Apple shows relevant intentions, will be very willing to undertake this new foundry project. Compared with oem assembly of mobile phones and other consumer electronics, the volume and profit of automotive OEM will increase a lot. In this way, Apple does not need to invest a lot of resources in manufacturing and factories in the early stage.
Whether it is Yulon or Chery, with its experience in car manufacturing in the past few decades, it is not difficult to assemble a car for Apple.
Is the impact of the departure of team executives great?
Evidence of the suspension of Apple's car project is that many executives of Apple's Titan project have left.
In the last two years, several executives, including Dave Scott, Jaime Waydo, Dave Rosenthal and Benjamin Lyon, have left, most notably Titan Project Executive Director Doug Field. The former Tesla executive joined Ford Motor to become chief electric vehicle and digital product officer at Ford Model e, Ford's electric vehicle division after the dismantling of Ford's business into three, with overall responsibility for product development as Jim Farley's deputy.
In the eyes of the media, the departure of these professionals and elders represents a negative look at apple's car project.
To fill the void, Apple appointed John Giannandrea, senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy, as head of the automotive program, reporting directly to Cook.
Kevin Lynch, previously Adobe's CTO, who developed the Apple Watch project, succeeded Doug Field as Titan's project director. No longer recruit executives with automotive industry backgrounds, but instead use two cross-border talents who do not have much experience in car manufacturing to be responsible for car projects, Cook's employment strategy has been questioned by many people in the industry, feeling that Apple's car project has pressed a pause button, and believes that this is a major reason why Apple's car project cannot land.
But is this really the case?
Looking at the domestic new forces leading enterprise - Wei Xiaoli, its project leaders Li Bin, Li Xiang and He Xiaopeng do not have any car manufacturing experience of vehicle companies, even Elon Musk, is not from the automotive industry.
But Wei Xiaoli can become an iconic car company in the domestic electric vehicle market, and Tesla can be far ahead of traditional multinational car giants such as Toyota Volkswagen in terms of market value.
In particular, Li thought that the range-extending technology route he chose at that time in spite of market controversy and doubts was a huge strategic victory from the current point of view. In the era of software-defined cars, if smart electric vehicles want to gain consumer recognition, it is an indisputable fact that the proportion of factors that measure the quality of cars in the traditional sense is declining.
People always like to compare the current Cook with the previous Jobs.
Jobs was a pioneer, and the Southern Expedition laid Apple's existing foundation. As a successor, Although Cook has not been much innovative, we also have to admit that Apple's market value has continued to increase in recent years, and its position in the high-end smartphone market is unshakable.
This does not rule out that the advantages of Apple in the Jobs era were too great, but over the years, few other mobile phone brands have been able to pull Apple down, which is enough to prove that Cook has not made obvious flaws in the big strategy.
Electric vehicle projects, often tens of billions of investment, the prudent Cook conservative some and there is not much to blame. If you build a car that is just very similar to Tesla or other brands, then such an Apple car is better not to.
Remember to click to share, like and watch, recharge me!