Apple’s chief executive Mark Gurman published an article on the pages of Bloomberg in which he tried to analyze the reasons for such a decision. 24 Channels translates and publishes in an adapted form.

Apple’s only desire was to surpass Tesla

Apple’s belief that it could produce a better car than Tesla and the rest of the auto industry ultimately led to the project’s collapse.
– Mark Gurman writes.

Apple had not given up on its electric car plans until last week. Instead, it was doomed almost from the beginning. It all depends on how the company starts producing the car. When Apple was founded almost a decade ago, there were two main schools of thought on how to proceed:

• Create a less ambitious electric car with autonomy features similar to Tesla models. This means the car can drive itself on highways and some roads, but not everywhere.
• Change the world with a fully autonomous vehicle that will take passengers from point A to point B without the need for any driver intervention. And to do it in a way that no one has ever done before.

Of course, Apple chose the second approach, and therein lies the problem. All these years, the company thought it could solve the problem of fully autonomous driving, which the automotive industry is still struggling with today, with a revolutionary design. This challenge turned out to be too difficult even for Apple.

Now you can understand Apple’s arrogance in 2014. The company revolutionized the market for smartphones, tablet computers and music playback. And he was about to launch the Apple Watch, which he believed would crush the Swiss watch market. The company wanted to do the same thing with cars. With that in mind, what was the point of creating a Tesla clone? It doesn’t revolutionize the industry. But such a car could still reflect Apple’s design characteristics and be fully integrated into the company’s product ecosystem. Not a bad offer for Apple fans.

By the time Apple realized its mistake a few years ago, it was too late. All work on the design was focused on the car, which should not have a steering wheel or pedals. The company has also invested billions of dollars in the development of a level 5 autonomous driving system, the highest level of autonomy. lots were drawn,
– adds Gurman.

According to one person who participated in the decision, It’s as if Apple tried to skip all the older iPhone models and jump straight to the iPhone X. Instead of starting with a good car with Apple’s user interface and Jony Ive’s refined interior and exterior design, the company bet on the wrong horse: autonomy.

There were other serious problems as well. This is the cost of the project, the inevitable high price for consumers and the meager (or no) profitability that a car can bring. All this was complicated by Apple management indecision and production problems in the production of the car. But in the end, it was pride that cursed all the efforts of the confident insider.

Cracking the automobile market is harder than cracking the smartphone, computer and MP3 player markets. It has evolved over a century and is full of many more competitors and more complex supply chains, plus it requires a ton of capital. Trying to create a Tesla clone, let alone one that would transform the industry, was risky. But Mark Gurman believes Apple may be the first company to actually do this.

The company could have easily followed the conventions of its previous hits by not trying to accomplish everything at once. The first iPhone didn’t have 3G, the first few iPods didn’t have a color screen, and the Apple Watch wasn’t water resistant until the second generation. In the case of cars, Apple can bring something to market, sell hundreds of thousands of cars, and then collect enough data to create a viable autonomous driving platform.

A car causes a much greater resonance. And this is probably the only product category that can generate serious revenue from the very beginning. Apple planned to sell its cars by: $100,000 per unitThis means it won’t take long for the company to generate billions of dollars in profits, even if sales don’t generate huge margins.

Now Apple needs to find something else to increase revenue. The company is currently working on a number of ideas: augmented reality glasses (not to be confused with headsets), AirPods with AI and cameras, foldable iPads, touch-sensitive Macs, and even desktop robotic devices. However, none of these will shake the industry as much as the automobile.

The company could certainly branch out into healthcare or expand into new categories like home energy. But these are challenging industries rife with regulations from numerous government agencies. If Apple wasn’t ready for the automotive world, it might not want to go further out of its comfort zone.