The team was exposed to disbandment, why can't the trillion market value support Apple's car-making dream?

The Apple car project, a hot topic that has spread for eight years, seems to have encountered a basin of cold water in recent days.

A few days ago, analysts broke the news, "Apple's project team has been disbanded for a period of time, and the restructuring in the next three to six months is a necessary condition for achieving the 2025 mass production target." ”

Previously, U.S. brokerage Wedbush had said that Apple was accelerating its automotive project and was targeting fully autonomous driving technology, which would be released in 2025. Could it be that Apple's means of promoting the project is actually to "disband the team"?!

Eight years ago, Weilai had just been established, and the ideal had not yet been incubated; and eight years later, these new car-making forces were listed one after another, but Apple's car-making story, twists and turns, and even at this moment, it was "offline".

What do new energy vehicle companies need most? There is no doubt about the funds. Apple's market value is currently stable at more than $2 trillion, and it has previously exceeded $3 trillion, and its cash reserves are even more abundant, but why does it seem to have the most perfect conditions and still have twists and turns in the car-making business?

At the same time, consider a question, there are many players in the new energy market, and new domestic forces are also accelerating the layout of overseas markets, if it really comes to 2025, how much market is left for Apple cars?

Frequent personnel changes, wandering development routes

High-frequency personnel shocks always make people lack a sense of security. For Apple's car project, not only its executives have left, but even the entire team has undergone several turnovers.

According to statistics, the executives who have left apple car team in recent years include Dave Scott, Jaime Waydo and other core members, the most famous of which is Pipe Gerfield, the former head of Apple's car project, after leaving Apple, turned to Ford's arms, and the person in charge of the car project is The Apple Watch project executive Kevin Lynch.

Kevin Lynch's career experience is actually not close to the automotive industry, which can't help but wonder whether this "layman" can lead the car project to the real landing. But for now, Kevin Lynch has failed to take up Apple's ambitions in the car project.

From large-scale recruitment to team change, Apple's car project has consumed a lot of time and energy in personnel adjustments alone, but it has not yet taken shape. Behind this, it is also closely related to the strategic planning of Apple's wandering.

Since 2014, Apple has incubated a self-driving car research and development project, named "Titan Project". The plan has so far been not without success, accumulating at least hundreds of patents on cars, but in the past eight years, Apple's project has undergone too many changes.

Generally speaking, Internet technology manufacturers want to share a piece of the automotive industry with a high threshold, either to build their own cars or to provide software services. Apple has always had a great advantage in software, and if it only provides software services, it may also be able to create considerable economic value for the company. However, Apple's ambitions do not stop there, and there is more commercial space than software service vehicle manufacturing.

But in the years that followed, the project's focus was shifted to focus on autonomous driving technology until 2019, when it re-sought the manufacture of complete vehicles. In the process of Apple's hesitation, the new energy automobile industry has already poured in too many competitors, and Tesla, which was previously rejected by Cook, has now climbed the throne of nearly one trillion yuan market.

The best supply chain managers encounter the game and constraints of the supply chain

In the electronics industry, Apple is undoubtedly an excellent supply chain manager. Its orders are enough to feed a large number of enterprises; but the car industry chain is long and complex, and not all companies are willing to become Apple's foundries.

As early as last year, there were rumors that Apple was seeking cooperation with Volkswagen and Hyundai, but Hyundai responded by not negotiating with Apple on the construction of the car. Interestingly, Hyundai has also previously said that it is in preliminary negotiations with Apple, perhaps because the two companies have not been able to reach an agreement and the cooperation has broken down.

And the public side also bluntly said that it will not do OEM work for Apple. As a traditional veteran manufacturer, the pride in his bones will not allow him to demote his identity to become a foundry role, even if the object is Apple.

Coincidentally, Apple's cooperation with battery suppliers is not smooth. Sources said that CATL and BYD did not agree to set up a separate factory for Apple for production and transportation. It is worth mentioning that as a foundry of Apple's mobile phones, Foxconn's parent company Hon Hai Group has also opened a car-making layout.

The new forces are no better than traditional manufacturers, and the process from 0 to 1 needs to do not only technology research and development, testing, but also face competition with supply chain manufacturers. Any enterprise in the initial stage of development is rarely able to take the initiative in cooperation with the supply chain, and may also face the supply chain to provide services to different enterprises and delay delivery.

Apple, obviously, overestimated its own coffee position in the field of car manufacturing.

Apple has been slow to get started, and the dividend of new cars is disappearing

As we all know, car manufacturing is a gold cave, and burning money and blood losses seems to have become the only way for new forces in the transformation of the automobile industry to tear open their mouths. At the same time, the continuous investment may not be able to get satisfactory results in the end, after all, the construction of the brand and the support of technology cannot be achieved overnight.

However, with the development of intelligence and the continuous impact of carbon emission pressure, the prospect of the new energy vehicle market is becoming more and more attractive. According to the "White Paper on the Development of China's New Energy Automobile Industry (2022)", global new energy vehicle sales in 2021 increased by 102.4% year-on-year, and sales are expected to reach 47.8 million in 2023, accounting for nearly 50% of new car sales that year.

Under the trend of the times, Huawei has "built" several new energy vehicles, can Apple really be lonely and wait until 2025 to build a car? And by then, were there anyone else waiting for the Apple car? Everything is yet to be proven. (Yeon Yeon)