The Ojo Yoshida Report
Unlocking Apple Car’s Supply Chain
Apple Car: Makers & Sensors
What About EV batteries?
A Portrait of Apple Beyond the Hardware
It’s Rethink or Sink for Prophesee
Small Is Beautiful: How to Cut Big Tech Down to Size
Podcast: Apple Car Hurry-Up Targets Apps & Service Developers
Unlocking Apple Car’s Supply Chain
By Junko Yoshida
What’s at stake?
Phil Magney, founder of VSI Labs, often says that Tesla is “a proxy of the future vehicle.” What, then, will Apple Car become? Will it be Tesla on steroids, a safer and more secure Tesla, or just a more transparent version of Tesla?
The departure of Doug Field, who resigned as the head of Apple’s car project (codenamed Titan) and jumped ship to Ford Motor Co. earlier this month, generated a fresh round of speculation that the car project at Apple might be stalled. We disagree with that analysis.
Apple Car: Makers & Sensors
By Junko Yoshida
Early industry speculation, since debunked, was that Apple was making manufacturing deals with Hyundai and Kia. Earlier this year, Korea Times reported an Apple deal with “a joint venture of LG and Magna.” A report this month from Korea’s Maeil Business Newspaper, however, says that Apple may go it alone.
Veteran auto industry observers put Magna high on the “likely” list. Automotive industry analyst Egil Juliussen called Magna “the most competent manufacturer” of vehicles but speculated that Apple “might recruit several different manufacturers.”
What About EV Batteries?
By Junko Yoshida
Batteries are “by far the most expensive part of BEVs,” automotive industry analyst Egil Juliussen noted. “Supply chains are tricky.”
The big hitch in EV batteries is that there’s “so much new tech, new battery manufacturing, potential supply chain upheaval,” he said. However, he believes, “Apple will have a backup plan via China connections if the better technologies are not ready in time.”
A Portrait of Apple Beyond the Hardware
By Bolaji Ojo
Apple Inc. built its enormous fortune on hardware long before services joined the bustling party. As the company contemplates a foray into the automotive market, the question on observers’ minds is how it can reinvent yet another sector, turning the consumer car into a fast-growth revenue engine for Apple that can rival its experience in the smartphone and tablet PC markets.
It’s Rethink or Sink for Prophesee
By Junko Yoshida
What’s at stake?
The art of growing a startup business lies in “finding a path” that’s timely, practical and scalable. Many sensor startups, mesmerized by AV hype, bet their future on automotive. Prophesee, based in Paris, was one such early gambler. The CEO now sees that it’s time to pivot. But which way? What are his options?
Even for seasoned Tier Ones and OEMs, complying with automotive safety regulations is no cakewalk. For a tech startup pursuing the ADAS/autonomous vehicle market, conformance with and validation to the slate of applicable safety regulations could pose insurmountable hurdles.
Small Is Beautiful: How to Cut Big Tech Down to Size
By Girish Mhatre
What’s at stake?
Today, the top five U.S.-based companies by market cap are all tech companies. Together, they are worth nearly $9 trillion. Unlike the monopolists of the Gilded Age, they did not get there by price gouging consumers (quite the opposite, in fact). Rather, they are practiced in the art of crushing emerging competition by wielding their market power, often nefariously. That threatens jobs, consumer choice, and — as these companies become states within a state — democracy itself.
I once asked Andy Grove, then CEO of Intel, why his company shouldn’t face antitrust penalties for monopolistic practices.
Apple Car Hurry-Up Targets Apps & Service Developers
Guest: Colin Barnden, principal analyst at Semicast Research
We asked Colin Barden: 1) what he envisions as a “wild card” Apple car’s Human-Machine Interface, 2) what sort of new services the Apple car platform might enable, and 3) if apps and services are the name of the game for Apple cars, how soon Apple might have to make its car platform available to developers.
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