According to Sanford C. Bernstein analysts, BMW could make for an ideal match for “Apple Car” assembly that would pair Apple’s Project Titan project with BMW’s leading innovation and manufacturing know-how talents.
Christoph Rauwald for Bloomberg News:
While discussions have focused on Asian carmakers including Hyundai Motor Co., it’s not the first time BMW’s name has entered the mix.
“In our view, BMW would be the ideal partner for Apple,” analysts Arndt Ellinghorst and Toni Sacconaghi said in a report. “Both companies have a leading innovation claim, superior brand equity and design and are excellent in global manufacturing and value chain management.”
About half a decade ago, reports surfaced of Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook visiting BMW’s Munich headquarters. Senior Apple executives traveled to the German luxury-car maker’s Leipzig factory to study how the quirky i3 electric hatchback is made.
MacDailyNews Take: Although an Apple car would likely compete with makers of premium vehicles, it’s important that Apple’s assembler has a strong brand, like BMW, that can stand on its own without being overshadowed (or is a contract assembler already, like Magna Steyr or the budding vehicle assembler Foxconn).
If Apple partnered with a weaker brand (Kia, for example), not only would Apple have to overcome their assembler’s brand reputation, but odds are high that Apple would obliterate that brand. If Apple worked with a Kia, it’d make a ton of sense for both companies that the endeavor to be spun out from Kia as its own entity, with a new name free of any baggage, dedicated solely to contract assembly.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
I’d be surprised if Apple partnered with a big name car brand. If it were a prestige brand, they would want to put their name to it, which wouldn’t suit Apple.
It seems much more likely that Apple would use a contract manufacturer or else a company which most do not associate with car manufacturing.
Apple could add $1 trillion to the market cap in short order by purchasing BMW for 46 billion Euro. The Beats acquisition has gone pretty well and that was a much larger purchase when compared to the global automobile market opportunity.
???? The German car companies would never sell out, neither would the Koreans, or the Japanese, you must live under a rock.
how’s that Blackberry / NOKIA / Motorola working out for ya? Apple and Tesla are going to erase the auto manufacturers. Tesla is eating BMW for lunch. Stranger things have happened.
Tesla makes no PROFIT dumbo, there is nothing Tesla does better than a German car company at the actual car level unless you like the fit and finish of a Yugo and going fast in a straight line like Corvette does not make a good car.
Apple and Tesla have nothing in common when it comes to actual PROFIT…..and Tesla is in the same boat when compared to the GERMAN CAR MAKERS NO PROFIT…..
Cruel but you are substantially correct. No chance or reason that BMW would sell to Apple they are cooperating with Jaguar Land-Rover on combined Electric car platforms and their skills are complimentary in that respect and both will have complete ranges by 2025 the latter only electric by then. Fact is BMW is only just launching its mainstream electric products the i3 was merely (a very successful) learning curve and then we will see who is eating who’s lunch.
Should Apple cooperate with BMW in vehicle production, unlikely to my mind, let’s hope they refrain from putting large ugly grills on the front mind like those BMW have inexplicably de died to do of late. Still think Foxconn are in pole position tbh as long as they can prove their quality credentials. I would say Steyr who have proved their quality and performance credentials, but I doubt they fit Apple’s profit margin credentials sadly.
Cars and all vehicles are essentially becoming 1/2 hardware and 1/2 software. Once cellphones became smartphones, Apple entered the market and dominated. Tesla has a software edge over other manufactures that will be magnified as more of them roll out electric cars w/ clown as partial self driving.
The reason we invest in technology companies is to grow a new idea over time to make profits. Investing in a profitable auto company is not a growth opportunity.
You seem kind of angry, perhaps get a hobby.
A Self driving Porsche 911 GT3 or M5, get the F out, I didn’t get a 4S for it to drive itself, Johnnie cab is a joke, a green EV? when most electricity generated in the west comes from oil, gas and nuclear well over 90%, Tesla isn’t even friendly to the environment it’s just relocating the power plant to HQ.
America needs to master power infrastructure first and high speed rail second.
They need to give this AppleCar stuff a rest. Apple already has enough to straighten out with its current products. Talk about counting chickens before they’ve hatched.
If Apple didn’t keep using up tens of billions of dollars on share buybacks, they could have easily bought a car company by now and have an actual car ready for sale. It’s not as though the auto business is flourishing owing to the pandemic, so there are likely more than enough automakers who’d want to work with Apple, or should I say want to get their hands on Apple’s cash.
Very good point.
True, but battery, software, and hardware tech is right up Apple’s alley long term, Tesla is about to be on the outside looking in Germany, Korea, and Japan are relentless when it comes to cars, and trains.
And they are profitable at it, Tesla is not….
VW is considering spinning off Porsche as a separate company…Porsche & Apple would be a match made in Heaven.