Well, the idea is to track the large-cap market, and have the most important, normally meaning the largest, 500 companies in the index. They kept Tesla out for some time due to volatility but once it reached the top ten in market cap it was kind of ridiculous to keep it out.
By waiting they’ve added Tesla at what might be a peak, instead of getting the run-up too. If they had added it earlier they wouldn’t have had to add such a whale to the index.
I am in no doubt that if Apple enters this market (and watch out for it actually trying to create a new one - or a very specific and highly-differentiated segment of this one) it will do so with the usual high Apple premium baked into the price and will have better margins than the likes of Tesla. In fact, I suspect it would not enter any such market, however good its product, if it was not confident it could generate and sustain such margins.
Pretty lame performance, but using lead-acid batteries available at the time was problematic.
And someone swapped the thermal engine with an electric one in an old Panda 4x4. Of course it’s not an optimal solution, because as you can see there’s still the gearbox, and I suppose that the heating system doesn’t work (ok, in the old panda never worked well,actually), but I’m sure that when is economically feasible traditional automaker will start to sell full electric cars.
Ehhhh different markets by nature have different margins. I am sure Apple will continue to have healthy margins if they are going to enter the electric car market, but I also doubt it will be as healthy as the consumer electronics market.
Still, I think it is good the electric car market broadens.
I agree. But - being Apple - I bet it will be much healthier than the car market.
[…]
“Apple building a car rumours” have persisted for almost as long as “Apple building a TV” rumours. The latter never happened. And Apple made deep cuts to its car research team in 2016. Even if Apple has revived its automotive ambitions, a 2025 horizon for production gives it plenty of time to change its mind.
But there are two elements of Musk’s story that ring true. One is that Tesla was in deep trouble in 2018, when its attempts to increase production of its new Model 3 caused a cash crunch. The other is that in August 2018 Apple hired Doug field, formerly senior veep of engineering at Tesla where he led the Model 3 effort. Field is still at Cupertino, as veep of its special projects group.
[…]
Interestingly — and perhaps not on topic — the first Tesla Model S cars I saw were driven by women, 40+, and it was after seeing a few that I realized this was the car for people who don’t give two bothers about cars. They don’t know or care how many torques it has or any of that koff metrical nonsense. They like that you push the button and the goddamn thing just goes. I mean no disrespect: women of a certain age with spending power are A Force.
And maybe, if the assholes who run the other car companies, the ones who never expected women to get drivers licenses, let alone make buying decisions, had listened, we’d be further along. But no, they had men put paperclips on their fingers to fake long fingernails rather than, you know, ask actual women to test their cars and listen to what they said. But so many of those dweebs are still in their high school minds…and we all suffer.
My partner asks where Apple will build its iMobiles and I’m too lazy to look that up but note that Tesla has an assembly facility in Fremont CA. My partner suggests that Tim Cook will happily watch Musk-Boy’s enterprise go belly-up, and then acquire said facility and its workforce for a pittance. Could it be?
There are women that like sport cars and they’re interested in torque and 0-100 times and so on. Tesla is clearly a sporty car. The Elon Musk winning idea was to make an expensive muscle car as full electric.
Car designing is an almost male territory, because cars are normally designed by mechanical engineers.
For some reason girls decide to study biology,mathematics,architecture and not engineering, and even in engineering they aren;t in mechanical, areonautical or nulcear engineering.
And nobody wanted to follow electric engineering: iwas reading that electric companies here have a problem to find chartered engineers to design power distibution stations and power plants. So finding people that could design batteries could be. (Not to mention technical engineers as linemen )
So what? Problems with amateur electric conversions of old cars don’t mean that “traditional” manufacturers can’t build electric cars.
Here’s an example.
It’s no mystery. That reason is sexist culture. Fortunately for everyone, that’s changing in countries where Gen X and younger parents who grew up with feminism have encouraged their own kids to pursue any career they want.
My niece is a case in point: finishing an electrical engineering degree, just got a job offer from one of the companies mentioned in this article after doing a paid internship there. When I asked her she said the old bro culture is absent at both her school and her future employer.
Another example, who’s been featured numerous times on BB:
Really…? REALLY? Want to rethink that a bit? Because this statement is literally misogynistic garbage.
Plenty of women make good engineers, but are steered or chased away from such fields by arrogant men who think they’re not good enough.
Some, though, persevere despite all that.
The head of the MIT mechancial engineering department is a woman…
She’s younger than me and runs an academic department, FFS…
/sigh I suppose I should have been more clear and said decades?
Yes, Of course, GM has electrics in checks notes 2017 when Tesla had launched the mainstream Models S and X and had thousands of orders in hand for the Model 3 by then.
There was even a documentary about it:
I drove a Leaf for three years, and a Bolt for three years. Both were excellent cars. The Bolt in particular is every bit a good as a Tesla and costs way way less. It was an outstanding car that I was sad to let go of when the lease was up (I couldn’t buy one for unrelated reasons).
You have a lot of catching up to do if you think women simply choose not to do those things, my friend.
How specific do we need to get? OK, “GM et al could have made viable mass market electrics that were more than stunts or leased/unownable vehicles for decades but instead choose to align itself with the oil companies.”
There were electrics in the 20s and earlier, also leased/rented, after all. We have been down this road before. But I never imagined the US automakers had such a fan base. They have never done anything unless forced, either by legislation (safety features too numerous to mention but I’m sure someone will demand a list) or extinction (crappy fuel economy and shoddy build quality).
