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Opinion: Now would be the time for Apple to buy Tesla, and kick Musk out of the driver's seat
Elon Musk has put an end to his idea to take Tesla private, but still has a tough road ahead to meet profitability and production projections, especially as Tesla handles expected investigations and lawsuits stemming from Musk's ridiculous "funding secured" misadventure. Apple, meanwhile, has billions in cash to burn, manufacturing prowess, obvious interests in entering the car market and finding new form factors beyond the smartphone — and the pull to tell Musk his services are no longer needed.
[...] Apple does have a lot more money than Tesla, which is running out of cash fast. It also has a chief executive in Tim Cook who knows about dealing with supply chains, mass manufacturing and all the other processes that sound easy when Musk describes them but are nearly impossible when Tesla attempts to perform them.
[...] On Monday, Loup Ventures analyst Gene Munster played down the theories that Apple might attempt some sort of deal, saying that if Tesla becomes profitable, the notion is just a fairy tale. "If we're wrong, and Tesla fails to reach profitability in the next year, Apple gains the upper hand and becomes the most likely investor or buyer," Munster wrote in a blog post.
[...] Apple knows a little something about building a strong profit margin with a premium product sold through its own retail outlets, and could handle many of the other issues that will continue to beset Musk and Tesla. In his now legendary tearful interview with the New York Times, Musk admitted that Tesla has sought another executive to handle operations, and even said that "anyone who can do a better job" could have the CEO role.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @06:35PM (5 children)
No, just a waste of time. Apple buying the music or film industries would make at least some sense as they're related to markets that Apple is currently involved in.
This isn't like one of those things where they could have some plausible reason for expanding. Just look at what Apple does now and has done over the years, when they've expanded, it's been something that's at least tangentially related to what they were doing. Smartphones being the most extreme jump, but even there the smartphones are similar to iPods that they were already doing with cell capabilities.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 28 2018, @07:33PM (3 children)
Apple has been working on electric/autonomous cars for years, and has been hiring Tesla employees.
The only thing implausible is the price tag. They should just wait for Tesla to implode and then snatch it up, or just copy their ideas.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @11:24PM (2 children)
Not sure what ideas to copy:
What is left to copy? Assembly in a tent, by hand? Compare to big boys [youtube.com].
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 28 2018, @11:35PM
Good point, heheh.
Maybe Apple should build their own battery factory. They can use them in electric cars, iPhones, iPads, etc.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 29 2018, @12:08AM
> Compare to big boys [youtube.com].
Watch the BMW video at 2x speed -- it's more impressive(grin) to see things fly around the factory, and only takes 18 minutes instead of 36...
https://hooktube.com/watch?v=M3HK34tcp54&app=desktop [hooktube.com] (allows changing playback speed)
Don't get bored with all the robots in the beginning -- first, look at all the special tooling and gripping tools required in addition to the robots. Then, when you get to the plastic assembly bits, notice that they are assembled by people.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday August 29 2018, @04:11PM
Except that Apple's buying into music or film industries back in the early 1990s would have made no sense, either. By that logic they should never have gotten into music/TV/film media distribution, nor the hardware to play them, because they weren't doing it before.
I'm not seriously arguing they should jump in now, and I believe there are lots of reasons they shouldn't. But there have been rumors circulating for some years that they have been throwing some R&D at electric cars, even though MacRumors now says those efforts aren't going on. If true (and that's an if) then they've got even more incentive than when they got into the music business because they've at least done some exploratory work in the area. Maybe what didn't make sense to do cold R&D on would make sense to acquire.
Dunno. All Lawn knows is that Lawn is only grass in the game of life.
This sig for rent.