Apple – Page 911 – I wish I had more to offer

Hyundai and Kia partner with Vodafone for connected services

Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors have entered a new pan-European strategic partnership with Vodafone to provide customers with fully connected in-car infotainment and connected car service. The partnership will enable both car manufacturers to tap into Vodafone’s technical expertise, and offer connected in-car infotainment services to their European drivers. Hyundai and Kia will use Vodafone’s… Continue reading Hyundai and Kia partner with Vodafone for connected services

Layoffs, furloughs, auctions and shutdown at Faraday Future’s EV factory

Things are growing grimmer for Faraday Future as the company has had to shut down its electric vehicle factory in California. Some employees have been laid off, others placed on furlough while the startup is trying to secure funding to save the company. As we reported last month, it seemed like the startup was finally out of… Continue reading Layoffs, furloughs, auctions and shutdown at Faraday Future’s EV factory

Tesla — “Apple Of Cars” — Entering Its Golden Age

Electric Cars
Electric Car Benefits
Electric Car Sales
Solar Energy Rocks
RSS
Advertise
Privacy Policy

Batteries

Published on November 10th, 2018 |

by Guest Contributor

Tesla — “Apple Of Cars” — Entering Its Golden Age

Twitter
Google+
LinkedIn
Pinterest
Facebook

November 10th, 2018 by Guest Contributor

Originally published on EVANNEX.
By Charles Morris

Comparisons between Tesla and Apple are nothing new, but with the Silicon Valley automaker poised for a new wave of growth, it’s a good time to revisit the parallels between the two disruptive companies. A recent article from ARK Investment Management explains the similarities in eerie detail.

In 2007, Apple had already existed for three decades, but beginning in that year, a wave of new products — the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and App Store — catapulted the company into a new dimension, and caused revenue and market cap to grow tenfold.

Before blastoff, Apple was selling computers, which were widely regarded as a commodity product, mainly to a few niche markets such as audio/video professionals, people who resented Bill Gates and people who just had to be different. However, the company’s strategy of vertical integration and consumer focus — precisely the opposite of the business model that PC makers were pursuing — allowed it to charge premium prices and command fanatical customer loyalty.

ARK Invest Founder and CEO, Cathie Wood, talks about Tesla and points out similarities with Apple (Source: Yahoo Finance)

The parallels to Tesla should already be apparent, but looking at Tesla’s position in 2018, they become even more striking. ARK’s analysts see “the outlines of another Apple in the making,” and point out that “Tesla resembles Apple in three key areas: a strategy of vertical integration, an imminent product inflection, and a business model transitioning from hardware to services.”

Apple’s strategy of vertically integrating hardware, software, services, and retail was very much a contrarian one. In 2007, conventional wisdom was that companies should focus on “core competencies.” Apple’s competitors all specialized in one layer of the stack. However, in a time of rapid innovation, vertical integration can enable a company to get a head start on the rest of an industry by developing key enabling technologies in-house. To give just one example, Apple was able to create the first multi-touch smartphone because it created its own multi-touch system, something no other company was anywhere close to developing.

Vertical integration similarities (Source: ARK Investment Management)

“Tesla picks up on Apple’s vertical integration strategy but takes it further,” write the ARK analysts. “In addition to hardware, software, and retail, Tesla also owns and operates manufacturing facilities as well as a global Supercharger network. Vertically integrating battery pack production at its Gigafactory is why Tesla is the only high-volume EV manufacturer today. Had Tesla waited for the supply chain to catch up, it wouldn’t have been able to launch and scale the Model 3 for years. In our view, this is a key reason why no automaker has released a viable competitor to the Model 3 thus far and why no company will be able to do so until 2020 at the earliest.”

Apple’s spectacular 2007 to 2012 growth was driven by the release of the iPhone, iPad, and the App Store in quick succession. As is the case with Tesla, Apple’s vision of the products it wanted to build was often ahead of current computing, microprocessor, and battery performance. Things started to take off around 2007 because the enabling technologies to build a high-performance handheld computer finally became available. “Having built up decades of software and hardware expertise, Apple was positioned to seize this opportunity and create the blueprint for modern mobile computing,” notes ARK.

Falling cost of lithium-ion batteries (Source: ARK Investment Management)

Like Mac computers in the early 1990s, Tesla’s vehicles haven’t broken into the mainstream, because they are simply too expensive. The main reason for this is battery costs, which are dropping rapidly. ARK estimates that the cost of lithium-ion batteries will fall below $100/kWh, achieving cost parity with gasoline cars, by 2022. Elon Musk has said that he expects to reach this tipping point by the end of 2018.

This cost decline is a big deal, to put it mildly. Once EVs reach cost parity, there will simply be no technical reason for anyone to build fossil fuel cars anymore (although financial and political reasons are likely to keep them on life support for quite a while). “Tesla has spent more than a decade preparing for this moment and, in our view, has the most compelling EV pipeline of any company,” says ARK. “The Tesla Model 3 and Model Y (a crossover SUV) have the potential to catapult EVs into the mainstream, much like the one-two punch from the iPhone and iPad in mobile computing.”

A look at the growth trajectory of both Apple and Tesla (Source: ARK Investment Management)

Tesla’s vertical integration — it’s selling not just a car, but an “ecosystem” of products and services — creates many income opportunities. “In the 2000s, Apple’s iPod+iTunes combination created a dual revenue stream from hardware and music,” ARK notes. “Today, thanks to its massive installed base of iPhones, Apple offers a range of services spanning music subscriptions, cloud storage, and app sales that generates $36 billion annually and accounts for roughly a third of Apple’s market cap. Competitors like Samsung that do not control the customer relationship generate no material revenue from services.”

In ARK’s view, every successful growth company goes through a “golden era” when the stars align and expansion takes place more rapidly than anyone could have foreseen. “For Apple, that time was from 2007 to 2012. For Tesla, we believe the golden era is just beginning.”

Support CleanTechnica’s work by becoming a Member, Supporter, or Ambassador.
Or you can buy a cool t-shirt, cup, baby outfit, bag, or hoodie or make a one-time donation on PayPal.

About the Author

Guest Contributor is many, many people. We publish a number of guest posts from experts in a large variety of fields. This is our contributor account for those special people. 😀

CleanTechnica Clothing & Cups

Advertise with CleanTechnica to get your company in front of our readers.

Ford to buy San Francisco-based scooter sharing company Spin to beef up mobility business

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
A person displays the SpinBike shared electric scooter application on a Apple Inc. iPhone X in San Francisco, California, on Friday, April 13, 2018.

Ford confirmed Thursday it has agreed to buy San Francisco-based scooter sharing company Spin.

News of the deal was first reported by Axios Wednesday, which quoted a source that put its value at $40 million.

Ford did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.

The move is a bid to beef up Ford's holdings in transportation and “mobility” businesses that don't involve selling cars, and tap what executives say is a rapidly growing market.

Several scooter start-ups, such as Bird and Lime, have risen to prominence recently, and some see these companies as yet another form of transportation, along with ride-sharing, that could undermine the need many households have for a garage filled with cars.

Spin rents out “dockless” scooters, meaning users do not have to park the scooters in designated areas or “docks,” as is commonly seen with similar sorts of services, such as bike-share programs. It currently operates in 13 cities and college campuses, including Denver, Detroit, Long Beach, California; Coral Gables, Florida and Troy University in Alabama. It operates bike-share programs at the University of Kentucky; and the University of California, San Diego.

By the end of 2018, Spin plans to operate in Washington, D.C.; Austin, Texas; Charlotte, North Carolina; Durham, North Carolina, as well as nearby Duke University; and Towson University in Maryland.

Ford has made a number of investments in mobility companies through its Smart Mobility division. In early 2018, the automaker bought Autonomic, a company that makes software meant to connect vehicles and organize transportation networks. When Autonomic CEO Sunny Madra joined Smart Mobility he was named the head of Ford X, an incubator designed to help grow new businesses that can target customers who may be losing interest in traditional car ownership.

Micro-mobility businesses like Spin are growing in a much different way than ride-sharing did, according to Madra. Cities are requiring permits and putting caps on the number of scooters a company can put in an area and where they can be placed.

Madra told CNBC Ford chose to acquire Spin because the way the company works fit Ford's values. “They always launch in markets where they have permits, they work very closely with cities to understand what their needs are,” he said.

Ford wants to grow Spin's business from 13 cities and college campuses today to about 100 in the next 18 months.

“We are really going to give them significant resources to help them scale,” Madra said, adding that the Spin will be able to leverage relationships Ford already has with different cities.

The potential market is large. Madra cited data from transportation research firm Populus, which found that half of all trips in the U.S. are three miles or less.

“Some of the leading companies in this space were getting upwards of 10 million rides in less than a year,” Madra said. “And if you compare that to the most disruptive transportation company in the last 10 years, being Uber, it took them three years to get to get the same level of usage. So it became obvious there was consumer desire in this space.”

Understanding how to scale a business like this will be key.

“That is an important fact because as we grow out our range of mobility offerings, we think autonomous vehicles are going to undergo the same sort of scrutiny that the scooters are in that sense,” he said. “Companies will need to get permits, and there will be caps, and companies will need to operate in very distinct ways.”

Qualcomm tops Q4 earnings targets, eyes 5G growth

Qualcomm published better-than-expected fourth quarter financial results on Wednesday. The semiconductor giant reported non-GAAP earnings of 90 cents per share on revenue of $5.8 billion, down two percent year over year. Wall Street was looking for earnings of 83 cents per share with $5.52 billion in revenue. Featured stories For the full fiscal year 2018,… Continue reading Qualcomm tops Q4 earnings targets, eyes 5G growth

Next-Gen Batteries and the Quest for Ethical Cobalt: Q&A with Henrik Fisker

Henrik Fisker (left) and Trent Mell (right) Automotive designer and entrepreneur Henrik Fisker refers to cobalt as the “blood diamonds” of lithium-ion battery production. Much of the world’s cobalt currently comes from mining operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where child labor and other serious problems continue. For electric vehicle developers, cobalt presents a… Continue reading Next-Gen Batteries and the Quest for Ethical Cobalt: Q&A with Henrik Fisker

RapidSOS Raises $30M in Series B Funding

RapidSOS, a NYC-based advanced emergency technology platform, raised $30M in Series B funding. The round was led by Playground Global, with participation from Highland Capital Partners, M12 (Microsoft’s Venture Fund), Two Sigma Ventures, Forte Ventures, The Westly Group, CSAA IG, and individuals including three former FCC Chairmen and Ralph de la Vega – former AT&T… Continue reading RapidSOS Raises $30M in Series B Funding

DeepMap, a maker of HD maps for self-driving, raised at least $60M at a $450M valuation

As car and tech companies continue to make inroads on vehicles and services to build autonomous driving systems, a startup that is creating high-definition maps to help these vehicles move around has quietly picked up a significant round of funding. DeepMap — a Palo Alto startup co-founded by James Wu and Mark Wheeler, who previously… Continue reading DeepMap, a maker of HD maps for self-driving, raised at least $60M at a $450M valuation

Possible car cartel: BMW versus EU – Brussels with hidden criticism of cooperation in antitrust proceedings

BMW In the ad-blue antitrust case, Bayern did not offer leniency. (Photo: Unsplash) Munich, Brussels Twelve months – Margrethe Vestager still has that much time. Her term of office as EU Competition Commissioner will end in October 2019, and until then the Dane, according to industry circles, would like to conclude a special procedure: the… Continue reading Possible car cartel: BMW versus EU – Brussels with hidden criticism of cooperation in antitrust proceedings

UPDATE 2-Waymo gets first California OK for driverless testing without backup driver

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Waymo unit on Tuesday became the first company to receive a permit from the state of California to test driverless vehicles without a backup driver in the front seat, the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles said. FILE PHOTO: The Waymo logo is displayed during the company’s unveil of a… Continue reading UPDATE 2-Waymo gets first California OK for driverless testing without backup driver