Analyst to Apple CEO, Chairman: Buy Tesla

TTAC Staff
by TTAC Staff

It’s one thing for Tesla Motors to be the Apple of motoring. It’s another for Apple to be the Apple of motoring. The solution, according to one analyst: Apple should buy Tesla to remain profitable long after the gold rush of smartphones and tablets has disappeared from the rear view mirror.

CNN Money reports an analyst for the German investment bank Berenberg, one Adnaan Ahmad, has penned an open letter to both Apple CEO Tim Cook and chairman Arthur Levinson, strongly suggesting they pay a visit to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s high-tech lab — no doubt interrupting his Lotus submarine studynot with a demand for Doug Field’s return to One Infinite Loop, but with a Halliburton briefcase full of cash. At least five of them.

Why? According to Ahmad, purchasing the EV automaker down the road would allow Apple to obtain the type of growing revenues that will keep the computer maker in the green for a long time to come, something that no iPhone or iPad can guarantee once the age of hipster gadgetry draws to a close. Ahmad also believes that Apple’s habit of disrupting developing markets, such as telephony and tablet computing, is just what the doctor ordered for the auto industry in the United States, leading to a much more rapid transition to hybrid and electric vehicles of all shapes and colors.

As for Musk’s role, Ahmad believes Cook and Levinson “could strike up a partnership [with Musk] and obtain a new iconic partner to lead Apple’s innovation drive,” invoking the spirit of late Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs while imploring the current guard to go outside of the box once again.

And if Cook and Levinson don’t heed his words? Then, per Ahmad, “the key debate will always be about [Apple’s] ability to sustain these abnormal margins in [their] iPhone business.”

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  • Turkina Turkina on Oct 30, 2013

    Why do they call these people 'anal'ysts? Half the time poop comes out, and the rest is passing wind. Write some BS, put it out there, get paid. Wipe and repeat. I don't see a very valid argument other than "They're both cool, so they should get together and make the ultimate in hip, cool products!" Google + Toyota or other automaker is more likely, but one would not buy the other. Google licensing auto-drive, or teaming up to create the integrated technology is more like it.

  • Bugmen0t Bugmen0t on Nov 25, 2013

    I can hardly think of a worse fate for Tesla. Apple needs to die and join its master in hell.

  • Jalop1991 In a manner similar to PHEV being the correct answer, I declare RPVs to be the correct answer here.We're doing it with certain aircraft; why not with cars on the ground, using hardware and tools like Telsa's "FSD" or GM's "SuperCruise" as the base?Take the local Uber driver out of the car, and put him in a professional centralized environment from where he drives me around. The system and the individual car can have awareness as well as gates, but he's responsible for the driving.Put the tech into my car, and let me buy it as needed. I need someone else to drive me home; hit the button and voila, I've hired a driver for the moment. I don't want to drive 11 hours to my vacation spot; hire the remote pilot for that. When I get there, I have my car and he's still at his normal location, piloting cars for other people.The system would allow for driver rest period, like what's required for truckers, so I might end up with multiple people driving me to the coast. I don't care. And they don't have to be physically with me, therefore they can be way cheaper.Charge taxi-type per-mile rates. For long drives, offer per-trip rates. Offer subscriptions, including miles/hours. Whatever.(And for grins, dress the remote pilots all as Johnnie.)Start this out with big rigs. Take the trucker away from the long haul driving, and let him be there for emergencies and the short haul parts of the trip.And in a manner similar to PHEVs being discredited, I fully expect to be razzed for this brilliant idea (not unlike how Alan Kay wasn't recognized until many many years later for his Dynabook vision).
  • B-BodyBuick84 Not afraid of AV's as I highly doubt they will ever be %100 viable for our roads. Stop-and-go downtown city or rush hour highway traffic? I can see that, but otherwise there's simply too many variables. Bad weather conditions, faded road lines or markings, reflective surfaces with glare, etc. There's also the issue of cultural norms. About a decade ago there was actually an online test called 'The Morality Machine' one could do online where you were in control of an AV and choose what action to take when a crash was inevitable. I think something like 2.5 million people across the world participated? For example, do you hit and most likely kill the elderly couple strolling across the crosswalk or crash the vehicle into a cement barrier and almost certainly cause the death of the vehicle occupants? What if it's a parent and child? In N. America 98% of people choose to hit the elderly couple and save themselves while in Asia, the exact opposite happened where 98% choose to hit the parent and child. Why? Cultural differences. Asia puts a lot of emphasis on respecting their elderly while N. America has a culture of 'save/ protect the children'. Are these AV's going to respect that culture? Is a VW Jetta or Buick Envision AV going to have different programming depending on whether it's sold in Canada or Taiwan? how's that going to effect legislation and legal battles when a crash inevitibly does happen? These are the true barriers to mass AV adoption, and in the 10 years since that test came out, there has been zero answers or progress on this matter. So no, I'm not afraid of AV's simply because with the exception of a few specific situations, most avenues are going to prove to be a dead-end for automakers.
  • Mike Bradley Autonomous cars were developed in Silicon Valley. For new products there, the standard business plan is to put a barely-functioning product on the market right away and wait for the early-adopter customers to find the flaws. That's exactly what's happened. Detroit's plan is pretty much the opposite, but Detroit isn't developing this product. That's why dealers, for instance, haven't been trained in the cars.
  • Dartman https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-fighter-jets-air-force-6a1100c96a73ca9b7f41cbd6a2753fdaAutonomous/Ai is here now. The question is implementation and acceptance.
  • FreedMike If Dodge were smart - and I don't think they are - they'd spend their money refreshing and reworking the Durango (which I think is entering model year 3,221), versus going down the same "stuff 'em full of motor and give 'em cool new paint options" path. That's the approach they used with the Charger and Challenger, and both those models are dead. The Durango is still a strong product in a strong market; why not keep it fresher?
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