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Should Apple purchase Tesla? (1 Viewer)

Josh Steinberg

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There’s already too much ownership concentrated in the hands of too few, which is leading to products and prices that aren’t necessarily what consumers want/need but what’s most convenient or profitable for the select few in charge.

I feel like we’re seeing less innovation and fewer options for the consumer than we should be because of this lack of competition. I don’t want it to get even worse.

Apple is already so big that they can and do streamline their products to a point where they won’t support anything that isn’t a giant seller with use for their entire audience. Take optical drives for an example: there’s not a single Apple laptop in production this year, or in recent years, that includes even the option to pay extra to add an internal optical drive. I totally get that not everyone wants one these days, but surely the number of people who might have use for one is bigger than zero. Another example: Apple used to make laptops with 17” screens, but now 15” is the largest size. Was the 17” the most popular model? I guess not. Was it useful to some customers? Absolutely.

Smaller companies need to pay attention to both products that have widespread appeal and products that appeal to a smaller but dedicated audience. But much like Disney says, “We’re not interested in movies that make $100 million, we’re only interested in movies that make $1 billion,” Apple ignores markets that would be profitable but not earth-shatteringly so. And the people who want or rely on products that fall in that middle ground just get left behind in the race to get bigger and bigger.

If all of these mergers and acquisitions came with benefits for the consumers (less competition for the company could lower their expenses and that savings could be passed on to the consumer), I’d be more in favor of them. But that almost never happens.

I feel like the last time Apple was truly revolutionary was when they released the iPod and the iPhone. Since then, lots of revisions and incremental improvements but nothing that I see as paradigm shifting. I’d rather see a company like Apple coming up with something game-changing again instead of just releasing a slightly thinner, slightly faster version of the thing they’ve been putting out for the last 10 years.
 

Dennis Nicholls

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Thomas Newton

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Apple is already so big that they can and do streamline their products to a point where they won’t support anything that isn’t a giant seller with use for their entire audience.

Long before Apple got really big, they were streamlining products. E.g.:

The first Mac had no user-accessible internal parts except for a real-time clock battery. RAM was soldered in. There was no internal hard drive or hard drive bay, so no motivation to go inside the machine for that reason.

The first CRT-based iMac dropped serial ports, the ADB port, and even the SCSI-1 port in favor of USB 1. SCSI-1 was more than 3x faster than USB 1, so the change meant a loss of performance even if you were willing to buy new external drives and scanners. But Apple went for simplification.
 

Thomas Newton

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DaveF

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From a developmental and technology stand point, I don't know.

From the view of merging Tesla's corporate culture into Apple's, there's no way. At a minimum, Elon Musk would have to be removed from Tesla in order for the two companies to have a chance at unifying. And if that happened, there would be risk of too much talent-flight from the company.
 
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Ted Todorov

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I totally agree with the noes, but:

(Not having looked at any of the links)

Apparently Apple actually offered to buy Tesla some years ago, but there was no agreement on price (many other companies fall in that category, like Dropbox.)

I would be for it on a purely philosophical level - funding better, more robust, greater volume EVs, battery walls and solar panels will be good for society.
Unrelated - Gassée’s last two Monday Note articles were about Tesla
 

Ted Todorov

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Read the Paolini article- not as bad as most of these usually are, which is why I tend not to read them at all, but if I had an argument from purely business point of view - Apple’s own car/automation project does not fill me with confidence, acquiring Tesla would be a better project.

OTOH, from a purely Apple stock point of view - don’t do it! The chances of the two cultures blending well is slim, and a Tesla acquisition messing up all of Apple’s other projects is high. Musk is unlikely to blend anywhere, and it is isn’t at all clear that Tesla itself could do well without Musk. Apple’s head of Swift moved to Tesla, and lasted, what 6 months? Considering his obvious talent, and how well he had blended with Apple for many years, not a good sign
 

Edwin-S

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Only if he wants to see Tesla go under even faster than it will with Elon Musk. Teslas are already insanely expensive under Musk's tutelage. Under Apple's tutelage the car would be dead in the water as soon as they added 15,000 to price for having an Apple badge on it.

Also, running a car company is way outside of Apple's traditional technology envelope.
 

Carlo_M

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On a logical level, as an Apple fan, my opinion is no.

As someone who’d be interested in the myriad possible ways that Musk would react to such a purchase...It might be worth it just for the lulz. :rolling-smiley:
 

Ted Todorov

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Well, with the Tesla stock rocketing from ~$200 to $2,238 in a few months, the question these days is who Tesla will be buying, not the other way around.
Lately, I've seen a few Apple Car rumors resurface, but considering the inability of existing car makers to compete with Tesla on a number of different levels, not sure I can picture Apple succeeding in either a car or in automation software.

The reason automation is so doubtful: looking at Waymo vs Tesla -- Tesla has a HUGE and ever growing gap in the amount of test data it has. And data is the key with automation progress
 

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