Apple’s acquisition of Tesla is false, but Apple’s involvement in the automotive field is true

Yesterday, the domestic media net commentary quoted foreign media reports, saying that Apple has completed due diligence on Tesla’s acquisition and Musk is willing to accept the acquisition. The above-mentioned media also wrote in the article that The Street predicted that Apple is very likely to acquire Specialty in 2018. Sla.

Afterwards, Chess checked The Street for the first time and found that the original text did not give the above-mentioned acquisition judgment. For example, the news that Apple completed the due diligence of Tesla's acquisition was also quoted by people familiar with the matter such as Weibo. The original starting point was actually From the perspective of ridicule, imagined the possibility of this acquisition.

Obviously, the domestic media deliberately exaggerated and distorted the original text in order to attract attention. But what is interesting is that because Apple and Tesla were originally star companies with their own traffic, the news quickly became popular on the Internet and caused heated discussions.

Although it is now clear who is the red face and who is the black face, from the perspective of the car, Apple and Tesla are like a pair of talented young men and women, whether it is from the characteristics of the company, the development status, or the product tone and Complementary abilities, there are at least 10 reasons why the two may come together.

Another interesting thing is that although Apple will acquire Tesla this year is a “rumor”, it was revealed today that Tesla has obtained a new business license in Shanghai, involving the design, development, import and export of electric vehicles and parts. In many other businesses, industry insiders also regard this license as another proof that Tesla is about to build a factory in China.

Obviously, Tesla has to come to China to do a big job before "selling" Apple.

There are too many reports that deliberately exaggerate and distort facts these days, so after seeing a major news, cars and things are habitual to look at the news source first. Then it is distorted by the domestic media as "Apple in 2018 is very likely. What did the report about the acquisition of Tesla say?

First of all, the title of this article is "Apple Buys Tesla? Amazon Buys Sears? 3 Dream Mergers That Just Make Sense", which means to imagine and analyze these three significant acquisitions. In addition to Apple’s acquisition of Tesla, There is also Amazon's acquisition of Sears, and Microsoft's acquisition of Netflix.

In the part of Apple's acquisition of Tesla, The Street gave a possibility analysis, that is, Apple's strong cash reserves and rich experience in mass production and sales are the resources that Tesla currently lacks.

In addition to analysis, The Street also attached interviews with former Apple CEO John Sculley and Tesla expert Anton Wahlman to confirm its judgment.

In 2016, The Street asked about the acquisition of Tesla in an interview with former Apple CEO John Sculley. The answer given by John Sculley was that Apple has sufficient financial capabilities and also emphasized that if Apple decides to buy A large company, then the company's products must be targeted at the mass market and extremely revolutionary.

The Tesla expert in The Street article, Anton Wahlman, said that Musk does not like the annoying and complicated business of building cars. What he really likes is building rockets (Space X). "Convincing Musk to accept the transaction is the easiest part." Anton Wahlman said.

Finally, The Street also said that someone close to Tesla revealed in online blogs and other channels that Apple had conducted two due diligences on Tesla over the past few years.

So in summary, today's "acquisition" drama is actually a deliberate exaggeration and distortion by a domestic media. Just look at it. However, The Street quoted interviews with former Apple CEO John Sculley and Tesla expert Anton Wahlman, which are worthy of reference. From the perspective of the car, even if it is rumors, Apple has at least 10 reasons to buy Tesla.

1. Tesla is currently struggling internally and externally, and the price is right.

The financial report for the first quarter showed that Tesla lost $785 million. According to Bloomberg's calculations, it burns $6,500 per minute, and its current cash reserves of $2.7 billion will be exhausted before the end of this year. Credit rating agency Moody's recently rated Tesla's stock as "junk", and JP Morgan Chase also gave a "reduction" recommendation.

Inside Tesla, the current maximum weekly production capacity of Model 3 is still hovering around 2,000 units, which is still far from Tesla's previously promised goal of 5,000 units per week, but there are only less than 50 days left before the target period.

At the same time, Tesla started to clean up a large number of suppliers in the previous period, and its self-driving chip leader Jim Keller, field performance director Matthew Schwall, vice president of service and sales Jon Mcneil, vice president of finance Susan Repo, and many other senior Guan has also resigned recently.

Obviously, the price of Tesla, which is in a period of internal and external troubles, is lower than that of the smooth period.

2. Apple has strong cash reserves.

Apple’s last quarter’s financial report showed that Apple’s cash reserves as of the end of last quarter were as high as 285.1 billion US dollars, or about 1.8 trillion yuan. Even with the recent reduction of more than $17 billion, Apple’s current fraction of $267.2 billion in cash reserves has exceeded Tesla’s current market value of $51.1 billion.

As the former CEO of Apple said, if Apple wants to buy it, it has the ability to buy it.

3. It's not that Musk has sold the company. His love is aerospace.

According to the interview autobiography book "Silicon Valley Iron Man" authorized by Musk, Musk founded two websites, Zip2 and X.com, before founding Tesla. The former gave Musk US$22 million in cash, and the latter merged with PayPal, which gave Musk US$165 million after eBay’s acquisition of PayPal.

At the same time, the book "Silicon Valley Iron Man" also introduced that Musk's childhood dreams are actually more focused on rockets, space and other fields, and cars are not his favorite. In fact, Tesla was not founded by Musk, but SpaceX was founded after it had money. It is natural to see which is true love.

4. Apple needs next-generation smart terminals.

Looking back at Apple’s history, whether it is the earliest Mac series of personal computers, or later iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and other products, Apple’s product strategy can be summarized to one point to build smart terminals.

At present, Apple has won victory in the field of consumer electronics, but at the same time it is also facing difficulties such as increasing difficulties in innovation and slowing market growth. Apple needs a new generation of terminals, and the automotive industry has just appeared in the trend of intelligent networking. Just as Weimar Motors vice chairman and former Tencent CTO Xiong Minghua said, the car of the future is the next generation of smart terminals, which is a battleground for technology companies and Internet companies.

Similarly, with the aforementioned changes in the automotive industry, smart electric vehicles will also reshape people's travel experience and the entire transportation system, which is a revolutionary product direction. In an interview with The Street, the former CEO of Apple also made it clear that if Apple wants to acquire a large company, it must be looking for a revolutionary product direction.

5. Apple has a lot of layout in the car.

There is a huge difference between consumer electronics and the automotive industry, but Apple has long recognized the reform and development trend of the automotive industry, and has conducted a lot of layout and pre-research here.

According to a large number of domestic and foreign media reports, Apple has initiated a car-building plan code-named Titan since 2014, recruiting a large number of engineers involved in automobile manufacturing, autonomous driving, software engineering and other fields to participate in it, hoping to build a Smart cars that change the world. The "New York Times" mentioned in an interview with several Apple employees that Apple has actually begun to develop CarOS, car interior and exterior decoration, electric door and other product details.

Apple car vision

Of course, the latest development is that Apple, like Google, gave up the idea of ​​building its own cars, and instead focused its core advantages in software and technology on autonomous driving. What needs to be pointed out is that when a car becomes an intelligent terminal, the operating system, automatic driving system and other software parts will naturally become core value components.

Apple self-driving test car

6. Apple has extensive experience in large-scale manufacturing and supply chain management.

As mentioned in the previous article, one of the key problems Tesla currently faces is the delay in solving the mass production problem of Model 3, which has seriously affected the company's next development. And Apple announced in 2016 that it has sold 1 billion units, note that it is 1 billion iPhones. Behind this magnitude is Apple's extensive experience in large-scale manufacturing and global supply chain management.

Although there is still a big difference between the automobile and consumer electronics industries, for pure electric smart cars, it can also be regarded as a more complex electronic product in essence, and Apple's manufacturing and supply chain experience can still play a role.

7. The product tonality of Apple and Tesla is consistent with the research and development strategy.

Looking at the products of Apple and Tesla, you will find that there are many similarities between the two. To sum up, they both like minimalist design, emphasize the sense of technology and so on. For example, Apple minimizes the buttons on the iPhone, the Model 3 has only one screen in the car, the iPhone emphasizes 3D Touch, Face ID and other technologies, and AutoPilot semi-autonomous driving has become the label of Tesla.

Model 3 interior

In addition to products, the R&D strategies of the two companies are also very consistent, and core components and technologies must be done by themselves.

8. Apple is not without the experience of acquiring new companies and entering new fields.

Historically, although Apple often only acquired a few small company technology companies to supplement its own technological accumulation, rarely acquiring C-end companies, but in 2014, Apple still spent $ 3 billion to acquire Beats, and at the same time won the company Online music and headset business.

After the acquisition, Beats’ online business evolved into Apple Music, while Beats’ headphone business was retained and sold globally as Apple’s official accessories. Of course, Apple subsequently launched AirPods and entered the field of Bluetooth wireless headsets, and the products are quite popular among users.

9. Apple can significantly enhance Tesla's software and Internet services.

Due to the large number of innovations in products, Tesla is currently the most popular company and product in the field of electric vehicles. However, returning to the car, Tesla is compatible with iOS and Mac ecology in terms of the ease of use of in-vehicle systems and the richness of in-vehicle applications There is still a huge gap in comparison.

If Apple acquires Tesla, Apple can import its technology and experience at the system level into Tesla, and even apply Apple's CarOS, Car Store, and so on.

10. Apple has a lot of accumulation and experience in the development and application of new energy technologies.

Although Apple is a consumer electronics company, due to its booming business, it has a lot of cash in hand, so it also likes to use clean new energy technologies such as wind and solar energy when building infrastructure such as corporate office buildings.

According to reports, Apple installed 700,000 square feet (approximately 65,000 square meters) of solar panels on the roof of the newly repaired headquarters building in the United States, with a total installed capacity of 17MW, making it one of the world's largest rooftop solar projects. At the same time, Apple’s new headquarters is also equipped with a 4MW fuel cell power generation system. Under normal conditions, clean energy can be used to meet the building’s power supply needs.

Apple headquarters building

Prior to this, Lisa Jackson, Apple's vice president of environmental, policy and social issues, also publicly stated that Apple's global renewable energy utilization rate was 93%, and in the United States it reached 100%.

In fact, the fit between Apple and Tesla is far more than the above 10 reasons. For example, Apple’s global sales channels and influence can help Tesla further expand sales; Apple’s smart hardware such as mobile phones and watches can be compatible with Tesla and other smart homes form a smart life system and so on, so I won’t repeat them here.

While analyzing the possibility of an acquisition between Apple and Tesla, Che Dongsi consulted a number of insiders in the automotive industry.

An analyst at the Innovation Workshop of SAIC's Foresight R&D Center said that if Apple really wants to acquire Tesla, Tesla's innovation should be most valued, rather than traditional electric vehicle technology. In his opinion, traditional car factories have a well-developed development and manufacturing process, so it is difficult to use new technologies and new concepts on a large scale, and Tesla, which is inherently different from the traditional automobile industry, is better Innovative application subject.

At the same time, the analyst also emphasized the relatively consistent brand tonality of the two. "Tesla, like the iPhone, is a product that is a bit petty bourgeoisie and a luxury product, and at the same time extremely emphasizes technological attributes. It feels a bit synonymous with a certain class of people in society." The analyst concluded.

"I have always felt that the two of them are doing something similar, and there is a possibility of acquisition." Singularity Motors CEO Shen Haiyin also gave the same judgment, but when talking about whether Apple can produce like iPhone after acquiring Tesla When changing the impact of the industry structure, the CEO of the new car company gave a different view.

He said that Tesla itself has already possessed a lot of innovation, and its birth has indeed opened a new era of smart cars, triggered a global new car movement, etc., and its influence has been released. Therefore, even if Apple acquires Tesla and optimizes it, the subsequent new products are actually more like the replacement of the iPhone, and will not have the same dramatic impact as when the original iPhone was born.

Finally, in the editor’s opinion, although today’s rumors of Apple’s acquisition of Tesla are "distorted", behind the rumors of the two companies being "together", it is the outside world’s response to Tesla’s new products, Expectations and ideas for Apple's involvement in the automotive field and the innovation of automotive products.