The current ICE-age (pun intended) Auto OEM dinosaurs are struggling to transition themselves from metal benders, to software innovators.
Gone are the days where the complexity was in building complex Internal combustion engines (ICE), with associated complex mechanical drive-train.
EV technology has reduced the bill of materials to mostly batteries, motors and tons of software. The batteries and the motors (essentially the "skateboard" in EV parlance) can be sourced externally. The key differentiator is the software defined innovation. Everything from the connected mobility application, to AV/ADAS, the in-cabin UX, etc. And Apple already has most of the pre-cursors (chatbot, maps, CarPlay, OTA, iCloud for CDP, telemetry systems, etc).
Only thing not quite in place is the AV and ADAS systems. Which is where Apple is focusing their R&D.
To be fair, there's still a lot of metal-bending (or carbon fiber forming, which the old dinosaurs learned quickly enough) going on when you make an EV. After all, you're still trying to move two tons of sprung mass over a bumpy surface as smoothly as possible, without any of the thousands of individual parts rattling or letting in water.
The Germans pretty much dropped the ball on software and UX from the very beginning. But they're still decent enough at bending metal around batteries and electric motors, and that seems to be enough for huge profits.
Gone are the days where the complexity was in building complex Internal combustion engines (ICE), with associated complex mechanical drive-train.
EV technology has reduced the bill of materials to mostly batteries, motors and tons of software. The batteries and the motors (essentially the "skateboard" in EV parlance) can be sourced externally. The key differentiator is the software defined innovation. Everything from the connected mobility application, to AV/ADAS, the in-cabin UX, etc. And Apple already has most of the pre-cursors (chatbot, maps, CarPlay, OTA, iCloud for CDP, telemetry systems, etc).
Only thing not quite in place is the AV and ADAS systems. Which is where Apple is focusing their R&D.