“When media coverage suggests Apple may redesign the automobile, even the most cynical car-lovers quiver with righteous curiosity,” Michael Schrage writes for Harvard Business Review. “They should.”
“Could Sir Jonny Ive be the next Battista Pininfarina, Harley Earl, or Akihiro Nagaya? Don’t bet against him. Steve Jobs’ successors are at least an order of magnitude more credible as disruptive innovators than the heirs of Ford and Sloan,” Schrage writes. “The computer, software, telecoms, music, broadcast, publishing, photography, retail, and consumer electronics industries certainly believe so. Apple demonstrably understands design, UX, and global supply chain alignment in ways few organizations ever have. According to data from Yahoo finance, company’s market cap exceeds that of Toyota, BMW, Volkswagen, Ford, GM, Honda, Fiat Chrysler, Tesla, and Daimler combined. Apple’s cash hoard currently tops $175 billion.”
“If Apple truly wants to fundamentally transform the driving experience and global automobile business, it surely has the ingenuity and resources to do so,” Schrage writes. “Unlike commercial aviation, automobile economics brilliantly reward the brilliant. Apple is brilliant. Don’t bet against them.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: What happens if Apple starts making cars is that every car maker will be impacted and many will either die, go the low-end crap route targeting the type of customers that Apple smartly couldn’t care less about, or embark on knocking off as many of Apple’s patented innovations as they think they can get away with.
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