Apple cannot find a voluntary partner for its electric car project

Poor, poor Apple. The richest company in the world (it slips up and down, but it still hovers near the top) only wanted to find an automaker to be its dancing partner for its self-driving electric car project. He probably predicted that companies like Hyundai and Nissan would fall on their own for the simple opportunity to contribute all of their latest technology and manufacturing expertise to a vehicle for which they would receive no credit in the market.

Well, what a surprise – it didn’t happen. After Hyundai got into a fight (and escape) a potential partnership, then Nissan rumored for doing the same, Apple has met a handful of automakers without showing anything. Now he has no choice but to turn to a contract manufacturer, like Magna Steyr or his familiar friends at Foxconn, according to a new one. Bloomberg report.

It always seemed like things were going to turn out this way. This game of wooing Apple’s automakers has played out like a miserable Bachelor season where none of the contestants want to be there, but have come forward anyway. Apparently Apple met Ferrari during this exploratory phase, Bloomberg reports, which is tragically funny. There are no details of what this discussion involved, but whatever the topic, “the discussions have not advanced.”

Hyundai, Nissan, and Ferrari aren’t impressionable startups ready to be requisitioned – they’re multinationals that have been making cars longer than Apple has been making computers. I would say that much of Apple’s success over the past two decades may be due to its surprising lack of pride. Sure, he talks big, but for the most part he stays in his lane, doesn’t introduce anything until he’s really ready, and does the weird business mergers and acquisitions that everyone else does. world can clearly see doomed from the start. To think that it could essentially encompass an established auto brand as a contract manufacturer isn’t typical for Apple, but exactly the kind of pride you’d expect from a company in its position.

Of course, making cars is difficult and expensive, and I understand why Apple wanted to give it a go. As Bloomberg rightly points out, this reflects the way the company builds its gadgets. Tim Cook’s team designs the product and someone else makes it.

But there is a difference between asking, for example, Magna Steyr to make your car and asking Hyundai. The latter has his own cars for sale, with his name on them. It probably won’t be so thrilled if the result ends in a smash hit. A useful analogy from Bloomberg:

A longtime official at Apple and Tesla Inc. said it would be as if Apple asked US rival Samsung Electronics Co. to make the iPhone. Apple wants to challenge assumptions about how a car works – how the seats are made, what the body looks like, the person said. A traditional automaker would be reluctant to help such a potentially disruptive competitor, said the person, who asked not to be identified to discuss private matters.

Yes, Apple has a history of booming industries. It changed the way record companies distribute music and the way people buy it (well, until Spotify appeared). It has also changed the way software is distributed. But changing paradigms of how people find and use content is quite different from a top-down reinvention of how cars – possibly the most complex physical “good” we buy – are made. .

It is also much more difficult to make money up front in this business. “Automobile industry profit margins are lower than Apple’s current model, ”Bloomberg said quoted analysts at Goldman Sachs in a recent investor note.

By opting to partner with a company like Magna, Apple can avoid the inevitable conflict of ego that would likely dissipate if it chose a consumer-oriented factory partner. There’s still a part of me shocked that a company with as much experience selling products as Apple didn’t just save time and admit it sooner.