“A survey of consumers who own hybrid or electric vehicles found that more than three quarters would be likely to buy a car manufactured by Apple,” Patrick Seitz reports for Investor’s Business Daily.
“Market research and consulting firm Morpace polled more than 250 U.S. owners of hybrid or electric cars for its study. It asked them about their interest in a car that Apple is rumored to be developing for release by 2020,” Seitz reports. “The results showed that 9% are ‘extremely likely’ to buy the Apple car, with 25% ‘very likely’ and 43% ‘somewhat likely’ to purchase it. The rest are ‘not very likely’ to purchase the Apple Car (13%) or ‘not at all likely’ to buy it, Morpace said.”
“The vast majority of consumers expect the design of an Apple electric vehicle to ‘be better’ than other electric vehicles (79%),” Seitz reports. “About 64% of consumers would be willing to pay between $30,000 and $50,000 for an Apple electric vehicle in 2020, while 22% would be willing to pay more than $50,000. More than half (53%) would expect the price for an Apple electric vehicle to be more than the cost of an average electric vehicle in 2020, suggesting they understand the premium that the Apple brand would carry, Morpace said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Sleep tight, Elon.
Wonder who’d welcome an Apple Car powered by hydrogen fuel cells?
When Apple looks at what categories to enter, we ask these kinds of questions: What are the primary technologies behind this? What do we bring? Can we make a significant contribution to society with this? If we can’t, and if we can’t own the key technologies, we don’t do it. That philosophy comes directly from [Steve Jobs] and it still very much permeates the place. I hope that it always will. – Apple CEO Tim Cook, March 18, 2015
Related articles:
Apple Car: Forget ‘electric,’ think hydrogen fuel cells – February 20, 2015
Apple working with Intelligent Energy on fuel cell technology for mobile devices, sources say – July 14, 2014
North Carolina regulators approve Apple’s 4.8-megawatt fuel cell facility at Maiden data center – May 23, 2012
New aerial images of Apple’s planned NC fuel cell, solar farms published – April 7, 2012
Apple’s massive fuel cell energy project to be largest in the U.S. – April 4, 2012
Apple patent application reveals next-gen fuel cell powered Macs and iOS devices – December 22, 2011
Apple patent app details highly-advanced hydrogen fuel cells to power portable devices – October 20, 2011
After I bought my Mercedes (and maybe that portion was a coincidence) a couple years ago, I was invited to participate in various lengthy surveys from an anonymous company that paid like $50 for me to complete each survey. I’m wondering now if that survey was requested by Apple.
And if $50k is the high end for an Apple Car, then I’m on it! My Merc’s value will probably allow for me to trade in and get it free.
$50K is only three or four Edition watches. I think it’d be higher than that.
Tesla and Apple will be the new Bmw and Mercedes of the world.
How decidedly boring a thought, hopefully they will be far better than that.
If that happens I wonder who Google will buyout to compete? Although I did read yesterday that Google/Tesla CEO’s are pretty chummy! Maybe Google will try and buy them out.
Gaagle and Kia would be a perfect fit, right?
Probably no one.. They’ll just be in all non-Apple cars.
This makes sense since anyone who can afford a Tesla can probably afford an Car. That 77% might be owners of <$70,000 electric cars while the other 23% probably owns less expensive electric cars like the Nissan Leaf.
I guess this speaks to how highly regarded Apple quality is and how ‘faithful’ the followers of Apple are. All we know is that it will probably be an electric car of good quality to be released 5 years hence being compared to current day hybrid and electric cars. I don’t expect the likes of Ford, Toyota or Tesla standing still for that long.
Upon what evidence do you make that assumption, we know nothing about it as yet let alone compare it to 2015 alternatives.
The first paragraph: “It (the survey) asked them about their interest in a car that Apple is rumored to be developing for release by 2020”, Apple tends to be careful on Quality when releasing new products, and the responders have nothing to go on except their knowledge of current hybrid and electric vehicles. Five years is a long time in these tech days even if it is the Auto industry.
To be honest I would not mind Tesla and Apple sharing this car space, especially with some differentiation between the two. But I wouldn’t want it to end up like the Apple welcoming IBM situation – seriously!
I would love to see an Apple-designed car, but I don’t see how Apple could maintain anywhere near its traditional profit margin on a vehicle sale.
Cutting out the dealership model, where you produce volume to fill up the dealers lots, then the cars are sold at discounts to clear for new inventory.
Take a lesson from Tesla, build to order, direct delivery to the customer, always have a slight backlog. None of the negotiation, trade-in dance with a dealership that leaves every customer feeling like they’ve probably just been screwed.
They could even setup Customer Service Centers, with the service writers using the name “Apple Moderately Sharp Bar”
This is all getting a bit silly. I’ll start forming an opinion once Apple announces something.
WHY?