My compliments to the Title Writer
Get that man (or woman) a beer! Now I'll have that song stuck in my head all day.
... Daaaamn right!
Billionaire business mogul Elon Musk is taking some time away from his electric car and space exploration ventures to slag off Apple. Speaking in an interview with Germany's Handelsblatt Global Edition, the Tesla founder said that employees who left the automaker to take up positions in Apple were anything but important pieces …
Engineering a car and Ive's styling of an iPhone are very different
But making a regular consumer gadget by outsourcing a circuit board here, a screen there and case over yonder is also very different from Apple working to develop the fscking awesome machining process that goes into an Apple watch.
The same thinking could well be applied to car - the only real change we have had in the last 100years is to go from chassis and bolt on body to Monocoque. Not sure that machining a unibody Tesla out of Al is there yet - but there is a lot of rethink about how to build a car around a battery.
There was a USA automobile booth at CEATEC this year (last week). It was a little bizarre, a rack of Harley-Davidsons (boring), a Tesla, and a bare Tesla chassis. I was a little surprised by how much the Tesla looked like a normal Japanese car.
Oddly, there was nobody (as in people to answer questions, or any kind of staff) there.
"the only real change we have had in the last 100years"
Do you seriously believe that? Here's a cursory review of "real changes" in automotive engineering since 1915... (at which point, the idea of an "all steel" bodyshell was still an exotic novelty)
Hydraulic braking (1922), Single +12v electrical system (1925), Power steering (1926), Independent front suspension (1931), Front-wheel-drive (1934), Electric indicator lamps (1935), Automatic transmission (1940), MacPherson Struts (the dominant suspension geometry in modern cars, 1945), Cruise control, synchromesh manual gearboxes (1952), Safety-cells, crumple-zones, the three point seatbelt, Electronic Fuel injection (all 1960s), Anti-lock braking systems, Airbags, Catalytic conversion of exhaust gases (1970s), CANbus, modular components, direct injection, Continuously-variable transmissions, anti-skid (1980s), Vehicle stability control, Throttle-by-wire, robotised manual transmissions, high-pressure diesel injection (all 1990s), Regenerative braking, hybrid petrol-electric drivetrains, fully electric steering, Infinitely Variable air intake control, dual-clutch mechanised gearboxes (2000s), Torque-vectoring, Lane-departure warnings, Adaptive cruise control (distance regulation), Automatic collision avoidance, geographically-aware engine and transmission management.
These are all major changes in how cars were built and operate, and are things that became standard practice after their introduction, rather than flashes in the pan, or simple mounting of an existing application into a car (hence, I didn't list in-car radios or Sat-Nav or shite like CarPlay) or improving comfort and convenience (so no air-con, openable windows, automatically locking doors).
On the manufacturing side, you've got Continuous Quality Feedback (1950s), Just-in-time inventory management, supplier partnership (1970s), Fully robotised assembly, Modular architectures (1980s), Flexible Manufacturing (1990s) - all of these techniques started in car production and have moved out to other manufacturing industries.
And it's in relation to manufacturing that Musk's comment is most relevant. Tesla's certainly no Toyota, but even they put Apple to shame on manufacturing efficiency: Apple's manufacturing relies on hand-assembly to an extent that's only possible when you're paying Chinese wage rates and selling at high prices to high-wage economies. Try move those iPhone factories to California, and you'd see a very different balance sheet at Apple.
Impatient youngsters can skip to the 3 min mark:
What is the pinnacle in your opinion?
Citroen's 2CV, and I'm only half joking. A close second was the Renault R4, but that is probably a vehicle totally lost in time for many. I have seen R4s survive abuse that suggest they'd probably survive Paris-Dakar, shame nobody was insane enough to try :)
>Citroen's 2CV, and I'm only half joking
About ten/fiftenn years ago, there was a project (and documentary) to design an 'Africar' - which would be tough enough to drive that continent's roads, while still being affordable.
On the proving run, they crossed the Atlas mountains. When they'd just passed over the summit, they met another car coming the other way - a 2CV.
Remember a certain S Balmer and his comments about the iPhone?
Also Mr Musk is more than likely to be on the receiving end of a number of lawsuits from those 'people he fired'. He is casting a cloud over their whole employment prospects in the future.
It remains to be seen what if any car Apple produces. Only then can we compare it to the likes of the Tesla, BMW i3, i8 and the Volt. If is any good then they are onto a winner.
He has seemingly forgotten this famous quote.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Mahatma Gandhi
He seems to be laughing at Apple. As other companies have learnt the hard way, that is a dangerous thing to do.
Then again, the iCar might be a piece of crap (yes please)
Why do you want Apple's car to be a "piece of crap"? If it is amazing, are you worried that you might be tempted to buy an Apple product?
Would you rather only one company (whether Tesla, Google or VW Group) comes up with a truly workable self driving car, and has the market all to itself? The iPhone being a great product didn't stop Android OEMs from also selling great products and across a much wider price range, and while RIM has given up Microsoft is still fighting the good fight to provide a third alternative.
Knowing where Apple positions itself in a market, there will be plenty of room left for the competition even if Apple's car is so amazing that Richard Stallman can't help himself and buys one.
Assuming Apple even makes one. Doing R&D doesn't guarantee they'll go forward when the time comes.
I'm not sure Apple would be able to corner (no pun intended) the market in up market cars.
a) they are an American company, no one (sane) buys American cars
b) their competition in upmarket is Ferrari, Aston Martin, Lamborghini, Bugatti
c) up market cars are either insane or gorgeous or (generally) both
d) where is the profit? Toyota and GM may make a few billion every year, but they have a huge portfolio of cars, not a single car, Aston Martin made around £80m profit
e) apple would not enjoy a patent war with car makers, especially their patent on rounded wheels.
So no, I can't see Apple getting in on the car game, I think Google are doing it as a tech demo more than anything, Apple would want to sell the same number of cars as Toyota but with only 1 car, a car which is inferior to Toyota/BMW/Honda/Skoda, priced to match Ferrari/Bugatti and with an upgrade cycle of 6 months..........
Apple isn't going to be competing in that market, any more than they compete with Vertu selling $100,000 diamond studded phones.
They will compete with the mass luxury brands like Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Cadillac, Lexus, not the guys who sell a few hundred or low thousand cars per year.
Why should Apple's car be 30% more expensive than the luxury brands whose cars are already 30% or more more expensive than the more economical brands? They'd be competing at the same price point as those luxury brands.
Obviously they have no hope of building a better car than Mercedes, who has been in the business for over a century. What they have to do is build a better self-driving car than Mercedes. Just like Apple had no hope of building a better dumb phone than Nokia, but when the market shifted they were able to anticipate what customers would really want/need/use in a smartphone and get there first.
Apple will have to do the same in the coming shift in the automobile market. If Mercedes, Audi and BMW get there first, Apple has no chance. But I'm not sure that companies run by engineers like automakers or Google have a hope of figuring this out. Jobs was really good at this, but he's not around anymore so maybe Apple won't fare any better.
"He seems to be laughing at Apple. As other companies have learnt the hard way, that is a dangerous thing to do."
____
Q: How do you see the role of Asia in the future of the e-car? We just saw the Taiwanese Thunder Power e-car at the IAA…
"you do have to take them seriously. There are four China-funded electric vehicle start-ups in the United States alone at the billion-dollar level."
Q: Do you take Apple’s ambitions seriously?
"seriously: It’s good that Apple is moving and investing in this direction"
Q: The German automakers just presented their reponses to Tesla in Frankfurt at the international automobile show. What do you think of the Audi e-tron quattro and the Porsche Mission E?
A: Any action in the direction of electric mobility is good. Our goal at Tesla is for cars to transition to e-vehicles. That’s why we opened up all our patents for use by anybody.
Q: You used to also maintain partnerships with German automakers. Is that a model for the future?
A: The problem that we found with programs we did with Toyota and with Daimler was that they ended up being too small. They basically just calculated the amount they needed to keep the regulators happy and made the program as small as possible. We don’t want to do programs like that. We want to do programs that are going to change the world.
If he didn't, he wouldn't have bothered to go out of his way to dismiss them and trash the employees who have left Tesla. I wonder if those who left voluntarily (rather than being fired like he claims) could sue for libel?
Maybe when they gave notice he fired them, so while being technically correct he'd just be exposing himself as an asshole.
In some places there is a legal concept of puffery. A statement which is so evidently not serious to a reasonable man is not grounds for legal action.
Given the perpetual tendency for American overstatement his statements may be regarded as normal business and he did not actually name any individual so probably has grounds for ducking and weaving anyway.
Something tells me Apple will get to have the last laugh in this particular spat.
Not sure yet. The dynamics of the VW scandal have yet to make their way into his figures.
I suspect Tesla's main problem is an inability to produce in volume and get the gains from that (judging from what I've seen there's also not that much JIT in the process so there are warehouses and stock retention pressures too. Starting something from scratch having to build a machine park that the competition has already written off in the books, and that will continue to hurt for a while.
However, I don't think it's a bad bet on the future. I'm toying with the idea of getting one myself now the refuelling is a little bit more distributed and doesn't take hours.
Selling a game console at a loss and making it up on the game licensing is not the same as selling a car at a loss, providing free electricity to charge them at a further loss and having nothing to make it up on.
If they grow their market they may eventually get economies of scale and make money, or maybe they'll continue to lose money while Musk and the other investors continue to pump money into it hoping a turnover is near.
Someone should remind Musk that Tesla do minimal inhouse engineering.
All the heavy lifting in design and manufacturing is done elsewhere. Even their clever (not really) battery tech has the actual designers company names still on it e.g. the controllers were designed in the UK.
Say what you want about Apple but at least they do their own engineering design, create their own manufacturing techniques and only sub out the low added value bulk manufacturing.
And let's just make it clear for once that Musk is *not* Tony Stark. Stark was written as a genius engineer while Musk is just a manager and hype man. The only thing they have in common is they're both arseholes.
And let's just make it clear for once that Musk is *not* Tony Stark.
I've never really viewed musk as a genius-engineer protagonist, he's always seemed more like a bond villain. After all, he's independently wealthy and owns a fleet of rockets, all he really needs is a white cat and a volcano lair (does anyone know where he lives? any chance it's in a massive undersea city?).
On the topic of the volcano lair.
Context: Landing a Falcon 9 in one piece.
Say what you want about Apple but at least they do their own engineering design, create their own manufacturing techniques and only sub out the low added value bulk manufacturing.
someone better tell ARM and Samsung they didn't make the chips for Apple, that'll surprise them
"did I miss the Reg report of Musk's plan to continuously explode hydrogen bombs above the poles of Mars?"
I'm still highly sceptical Apple has what it takes to design something as mechanically complex as a car. That said I also highly doubt the Tesla engineers are as superior as Musk makes them out to be. And being proud of "those who fail in your company" being directly hired by someone who might be a direct competitor. Either they weren't as bad as you made them out to be or they failed in your particular organisation. I have plenty of collegues who wouldn't function in a high burn rate enviroment like Tesla yet are quite brilliant designers. I myself am not that brilliant but wouldn't function there either. I prefer to take my time and mull things over. That DOES mean I catch all the little details other people sometimes miss.
Well done to the author for taking the least interesting and most minor of the questions put to Elon.
How about :
Q: The German automakers just presented their responses to Tesla in Frankfurt at the international automobile show. What do you think of the Audi e-tron quattro and the Porsche Mission E?
A: Any action in the direction of electric mobility is good. Our goal at Tesla is for cars to transition to e-vehicles. That’s why we opened up all our patents for use by anybody.
Q: And who has used them?
A: Maybe the companies you already mentioned. When I saw a diagram of Porsche’s Mission E, I thought: It looks exactly like our car. Which is fine. It’s more important to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport.
Q: What role will German manufacturers play in the future?
A: The longer the delay of getting into electric cars, the worse off the German car industry will be. We have reached the limit of physics for what gasoline and diesel can do. You see what’s happened with the current diesel scandal at Volkswagen. In order to make progress, they apparently had to cheat. I think if you intentionally mislead governments around the world with software that is designed to only be effective at the test stand, this is a very conscious action.
Q: Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said: “No one will make money on electric cars.” When will Tesla?
A: I hope to be profitable next year. I agree, we cannot be making losses forever. This year we’ll be investing a lot into the manufacturing ramp-up of the Model X, and in the long term, the Model 3 as well. So our goal from next year onwards is to be cash-flow positive. But we wouldn’t slow down our growth for the sake of profitability.
Q: How do you see the role of Asia in the future of the e-car? We just saw the Taiwanese Thunder Power e-car at the IAA…
A: Thunder Power? Never heard of it. But you do have to take them seriously. There are four China-funded electric vehicle start-ups in the United States alone at the billion-dollar level. We are facing some challenges in China because we don’t get produced domestically. We have to pay 25 percent import taxes; when China exports a car to the United States, it’s 3 percent. If China expects other countries to have a level playing field then they should too.
Q: Do German politicians understand what’s happening in the mobility market?
A: I think the public understands better than the politicians and the automakers. If you judge the public reaction in the room, they know what should be done.
Very sensible answers.
As for the German e-cars, I wonder if they start offers free recharges as well, but I wouldn't mind paying for the power if that would help pumps add a power port and so grow the distribution of recharge points. Charging in 15 minutes is IMHO a very acceptable time, just enough to have a break and a cup of coffee or something.