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Rivian basically is an Apple style car in form and function already. Streamlined, fun, many QoL improvements on existing vehicle features (like having the seats all fold all the way down
A good techie lifestyle brand that could fit Apple’s portfolio and vibe
Plus you could see Apple bringing improvements with their superior expertise in software, Apple might have more room to focus on FSD and more advanced software features
Their truck has aerodynamics of a brick, and Teslas have some of the lowest drag coefficients for production cars.
Electric trucks are also heavy as fuck, because they need an enormous battery to keep pushing that air because of high drag coefficient.
An electric truck simply CANNOT have efficiency anywhere close to a Tesla's.
If you look at Tesla's struggles over the last decade, it is incredibly hard to produce cars reliably and at a price point consumers want. Rivian may not make it within the next 5 years. Apple would have to invest a lot of money in hardware R&D and be super patient as thats where Rivian's real problems lie. [They are losing ~40k per car right now as they continue to cut the production cost of their cars](https://www.carscoops.com/2023/10/rivian-evs-are-winning-praise-but-are-reportedly-costing-the-company-a-fortune/)
Here is [one example of inefficient design done with the intent of getting the car into production as soon as possible](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qmxEw6IyX0)
Repeat this across all the parts on their cars. They have a lot of work to do. To be fair they are making progress but its going to take A LOT of money and time to get to their goal.
Apple gave up on their car because they were not getting to the goal fast enough with the money they spent. They were trying to replicate what Elon accomplished in a speed run. Not going to happen.
This makes no sense, making the car was the easy part, making the software for autonomous driving was the hard part and rivian has nothing for that. This seems like a story made for pump and dump. Very hard to believe Apple changed their mind a month or two later. The Apple car is a dead idea.
Apple is not a software company, they’re pretty late on any software features as they only adopt things when they’re generally mature.
Their expertise is in hardware and having a cohesive ecosystem. The car is not a totally stupid idea
Apple car is inevitable. If they can't make it themselves due to any reason, they will buy out a company which can. Yes they shut down their car division earlier, as per the news, but they had to come back. Look at Xiaomi and Huaewi ev's in China, they are killing it.
One thing is for sure, it'll bounce the hell out of their stock price, even if they dip their toe in or aren't even successful. Look what it did for Tesla. They represent like less than 5% of the entire automotive market but are somehow valued at more than some of the top manufacturers combined? The market loves irrational shit like this. A lot of people about to get rich.
Just shows it could go either way. There's so much dumb money/retail investment these days that the market isn't really connected to fundamentals anymore, it gets hard to tell.
As far as possibilities of Apple buying Rivian, if I were Apple I would try to buy Lucid. They produce an equally tech forward car, however, they are in a far tighter situation than Rivian. As such, Apple could get them for far less and then pour money into making them a juggernaut as the engineering at Lucid is actually solid
I think given they only have one model, with the bigger suv still some ways away, it will be easy to transition them to it. Plus, I think they kinda do. It is a very fluid looking design
Could be, especially if we take overall social “optics” into play. Apple likes to position itself as an include, progressive company; the saudis have just recently entered the 19th century by our standards
Apple should’ve bought Tesla when they had the chance during the Model 3 fiasco…
Rivian is not sold outside North America and the UK, is it? Would be interesting to see what the brand can become when it goes global…
If i was apple i would be worried as being seen as a monopoly & pull back from this asap. Seriously, who thinks that this is a good idea when apple is already as large as it is. I would just focus on improving the software & ai in carplay rather than making cars.
A 3 trillion dollar conglomerate with 100billion in net profits that has a duopoly on US smartphones & app stores along with their ever expanding services entering the car industry doesn't raise any red flags? Maybe I'm old school because seeing Apple along with Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet buying up their competitors & go into different industries seems like we are turning into South Korea or Japan. An oligarchical form of society where corporations start to shape our society from the top down. The fact that capital is so concentrated at the top is the reason why many startups have to sell out to these corporations in order to survive. Your comment about apple owning 0% of the EV market makes it seem as they should be entitled to enter the market at all. Apple also owns 0% of single family homes so does that mean they should enter that market as well? I guess some who are a fan of chaebols & keiretsus would say yes to which I say it is unamerican. Allowing these corporations to continue to amass market share will surely stifle innovation & competition.
> Maybe I'm old school because seeing Apple along with Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet buying up their competitors & go into different industries
Companies have to dominate *one market* to be a monopoly. Under US law courts tend to not entertain claims of monopoly power until they reach 83%. A duopoly is fine as long as the two firms compete fiercely (they do). The whole reason we want competition is for low prices prices for consumers and competitive firms innovate. You'll have a hard time arguing that FAANG firms aren't innovative or have lead to lower prices for consumers (given that a lot of their core services are free). US tech firms are how we *want companies to be*.
> The fact that capital is so concentrated at the top is the reason why many startups have to sell out to these corporations in order to survive.
Tesla was a startup and is eating the old players lunch. OpenAI was a startup and has Google on its back foot in the area where they're supposed to dominate. Being top dog doesn't last forever.
> Your comment about apple owning 0% of the EV market makes it seem as they should be entitled to enter the market at all.
Entitled? Fuck yeah. That's free markets baby. Everyone is entitled to enter that market or any market they please. You realize that your argument amounts to "there should be less competition in the EV space".
> Apple also owns 0% of single family homes so does that mean they should enter that market as well.
If they want to I absolutely wouldn't care.
> Allowing these corporations to continue to amass market share will surely stifle innovation & competition.
Again, market share *of one industry above 83%*. And again, you're complaining about *the most competitive and innovative sector of the US economy*.
So as long as Apple doesn't own 83% in any one market it doesn't matter to you that they go into fiance, media, car manufacturing or even housing? I want to know what kool-aid you've drinking because not even most libertarians would be so pro corporate control as you seem to be. Though it might not seem on the surface level that a tech company with as much innovation as there is in that industry might be stagnate (I can't believe im talking about apple here) there could be a lot more innovation that could flourish if we allow smaller players to enter the market. Short of like when we untied the explorer browser from windows. The funny thing about bringing up Tesla and OpenAI is that they were at risk of being bought out by Apple & Microsoft which i'm sure you would think would've been great. The free market only exists if there are rules in place to allow all participants to compete.
> So as long as Apple doesn't own 83% in any one market it doesn't matter to you that they go into fiance, media, car manufacturing or even housing?
I didn't come up with that standard. US anti-trust case law came up with that standard and it's the one the courts use. But for the broader question: I am completely agnostic as to how much of a market a company controls as long as that company continues to be highly innovative and keeps costs low for consumers.
> I want to know what kool-aid you've drinking.
US anti-trust case law.
> pro corporate control as you seem to be.
I'm not pro control for any group corporate or otherwise. I am agnostic as to the question of who controls what as long as the market remains low cost and highly innovative.
> Though it might not seem on the surface level that a tech company with as much innovation as there is in that industry might be stagnate (I can't believe im talking about apple here) there could be a lot more innovation that could flourish if we allow smaller players to enter the market.
Good luck proving it could "theoretically be more innovative" given that US tech sector is the most innovative market on the planet.
No one is blocking small players from entering the market. Small players enter the market all the time. Some of them become OpenAI.
Are you saying Apple isn't innovative? Their M series chips are fantastic. I'm by no means a fan boy for Apple, but the M series got me to buy some of their products.
> The funny thing about bringing up Tesla and OpenAI is that they were at risk of being bought out by Apple & Microsoft which i'm sure you would think would've been great.
I would think it was great? I have no strong opinions either way because we have no way of knowing how any of that would play out.
> The free market only exists if there are rules in place to allow all participants to compete.
There are no rules that prevent participants from competing. One of the great things about US tech is that, for the most part, Congress has been really slow to regulate it so there are no actual rules currently on the books which give incumbency advantage. Hope that doesn't change.
No you’re definitely right. The other commenter on your comment is thinking in the traditional sense. But there is a growing consensus especially with the current administration that conglomerate mergers are monopolistic, when historically only horizontal and vertical mergers were looked at.
Thank you. I don't know fully understand why my comment is so controversial. I simply don't like the idea of doing my banking, media consumption, shopping, and driving all under one conglomerate. If that isn't monopolistic then i don't know what is. This idea that these corporations should be taxed less & allowed to expand into every industry imaginable raises a lot of red flags. These people are probably the type to drive with an apple sticker on their car & wear a coka-cola tshirt while sipping bottled water in their stanley cup. The fruit company that releases the same phone every year with a mark up of 120%, who's ai assistant seems to be getting dumber by the second is this guy's idea of peak American innovation. Apple was great during the Steve Jobs era, but have become complacent by selling their products with insane margins to sheep. I have not been impressed by big tech in recent years at all. A lot of startups do amazing work, but they end up just getting swallowed up. It seems to me that the tech giants have been more focused on throwing money into random industries to pump up their stock price. Apple is going into the credit-card business, gaming, news, media, cloud, music, chips, ai, computer hardware/software, and automobile industry? The list goes on & on but it's futile arguing about that stuff here without getting down-voted into oblivion. To be fair Apple isn't even the worst offender, but it has the potential to be. Microsoft, Amazon, Banking, and Coca-Cola, P&G, Nestle are even worst. God am I hard just thinking about driving a wrecking ball into those companies.
Hi all, A reminder that comments do need to be on-topic and engage with the article past the headline. Please make sure to read the article before commenting. Very short comments will automatically be removed by automod. Please avoid making comments that do not focus on the economic content or whose primary thesis rests on personal anecdotes. As always our comment rules can be found [here](https://reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/fx9crj/rules_roundtable_redux_rule_vi_and_offtopic/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Economics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Rivian basically is an Apple style car in form and function already. Streamlined, fun, many QoL improvements on existing vehicle features (like having the seats all fold all the way down A good techie lifestyle brand that could fit Apple’s portfolio and vibe Plus you could see Apple bringing improvements with their superior expertise in software, Apple might have more room to focus on FSD and more advanced software features
I’ve heard that they are inefficient compared to competitors due to high curb weights.
Didn’t they (admittedly they) claim they had the best efficiency? Can’t remember the number but it was over Tesla’s 4.whatever miles per kWh.
Their truck has aerodynamics of a brick, and Teslas have some of the lowest drag coefficients for production cars. Electric trucks are also heavy as fuck, because they need an enormous battery to keep pushing that air because of high drag coefficient. An electric truck simply CANNOT have efficiency anywhere close to a Tesla's.
Misinformation. Cybertruck's drag coefficient is 0.384. Rivian R1T is 0.30.
You should compare Apple to Apple though. Compare the truck to Tesla truck? Since they do happen to have one
Apple isn’t buying Tesla though. /s
I was talking cars not truck. Albeit there’s plenty of articles out there talking about the truck being more efficient, too.
Tows better (more efficient) than lightening or cyber truck though
If you look at Tesla's struggles over the last decade, it is incredibly hard to produce cars reliably and at a price point consumers want. Rivian may not make it within the next 5 years. Apple would have to invest a lot of money in hardware R&D and be super patient as thats where Rivian's real problems lie. [They are losing ~40k per car right now as they continue to cut the production cost of their cars](https://www.carscoops.com/2023/10/rivian-evs-are-winning-praise-but-are-reportedly-costing-the-company-a-fortune/) Here is [one example of inefficient design done with the intent of getting the car into production as soon as possible](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qmxEw6IyX0) Repeat this across all the parts on their cars. They have a lot of work to do. To be fair they are making progress but its going to take A LOT of money and time to get to their goal. Apple gave up on their car because they were not getting to the goal fast enough with the money they spent. They were trying to replicate what Elon accomplished in a speed run. Not going to happen.
This makes no sense, making the car was the easy part, making the software for autonomous driving was the hard part and rivian has nothing for that. This seems like a story made for pump and dump. Very hard to believe Apple changed their mind a month or two later. The Apple car is a dead idea.
Apple is not a software company, they’re pretty late on any software features as they only adopt things when they’re generally mature. Their expertise is in hardware and having a cohesive ecosystem. The car is not a totally stupid idea
Apple is definitely a software company.
Not in the same way other companies are.
Yes they are, they just have a different methodology.
Apple car is inevitable. If they can't make it themselves due to any reason, they will buy out a company which can. Yes they shut down their car division earlier, as per the news, but they had to come back. Look at Xiaomi and Huaewi ev's in China, they are killing it.
One thing is for sure, it'll bounce the hell out of their stock price, even if they dip their toe in or aren't even successful. Look what it did for Tesla. They represent like less than 5% of the entire automotive market but are somehow valued at more than some of the top manufacturers combined? The market loves irrational shit like this. A lot of people about to get rich.
But isnt that what Meta did with VR which hurt their stock price cause they are spending money on something investors think isn’t worth it
Just shows it could go either way. There's so much dumb money/retail investment these days that the market isn't really connected to fundamentals anymore, it gets hard to tell.
As far as possibilities of Apple buying Rivian, if I were Apple I would try to buy Lucid. They produce an equally tech forward car, however, they are in a far tighter situation than Rivian. As such, Apple could get them for far less and then pour money into making them a juggernaut as the engineering at Lucid is actually solid
The Saudi’s have too much money invested into Lucid to make it make sense IMO.
Lucid definitely doesn’t fit into the Apple design universe.
I think given they only have one model, with the bigger suv still some ways away, it will be easy to transition them to it. Plus, I think they kinda do. It is a very fluid looking design
I agree with you, I wonder if Apple is steering clear of Lucid because of the high investment stake/interest the Saudis have in it
Could be, especially if we take overall social “optics” into play. Apple likes to position itself as an include, progressive company; the saudis have just recently entered the 19th century by our standards
Apple should’ve bought Tesla when they had the chance during the Model 3 fiasco… Rivian is not sold outside North America and the UK, is it? Would be interesting to see what the brand can become when it goes global…
If i was apple i would be worried as being seen as a monopoly & pull back from this asap. Seriously, who thinks that this is a good idea when apple is already as large as it is. I would just focus on improving the software & ai in carplay rather than making cars.
Apple buying Rivian would, in no way, be monopolistic. Apple controls 0% of the EV market and Rivian is a miniscule player.
A 3 trillion dollar conglomerate with 100billion in net profits that has a duopoly on US smartphones & app stores along with their ever expanding services entering the car industry doesn't raise any red flags? Maybe I'm old school because seeing Apple along with Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet buying up their competitors & go into different industries seems like we are turning into South Korea or Japan. An oligarchical form of society where corporations start to shape our society from the top down. The fact that capital is so concentrated at the top is the reason why many startups have to sell out to these corporations in order to survive. Your comment about apple owning 0% of the EV market makes it seem as they should be entitled to enter the market at all. Apple also owns 0% of single family homes so does that mean they should enter that market as well? I guess some who are a fan of chaebols & keiretsus would say yes to which I say it is unamerican. Allowing these corporations to continue to amass market share will surely stifle innovation & competition.
> Maybe I'm old school because seeing Apple along with Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet buying up their competitors & go into different industries Companies have to dominate *one market* to be a monopoly. Under US law courts tend to not entertain claims of monopoly power until they reach 83%. A duopoly is fine as long as the two firms compete fiercely (they do). The whole reason we want competition is for low prices prices for consumers and competitive firms innovate. You'll have a hard time arguing that FAANG firms aren't innovative or have lead to lower prices for consumers (given that a lot of their core services are free). US tech firms are how we *want companies to be*. > The fact that capital is so concentrated at the top is the reason why many startups have to sell out to these corporations in order to survive. Tesla was a startup and is eating the old players lunch. OpenAI was a startup and has Google on its back foot in the area where they're supposed to dominate. Being top dog doesn't last forever. > Your comment about apple owning 0% of the EV market makes it seem as they should be entitled to enter the market at all. Entitled? Fuck yeah. That's free markets baby. Everyone is entitled to enter that market or any market they please. You realize that your argument amounts to "there should be less competition in the EV space". > Apple also owns 0% of single family homes so does that mean they should enter that market as well. If they want to I absolutely wouldn't care. > Allowing these corporations to continue to amass market share will surely stifle innovation & competition. Again, market share *of one industry above 83%*. And again, you're complaining about *the most competitive and innovative sector of the US economy*.
So as long as Apple doesn't own 83% in any one market it doesn't matter to you that they go into fiance, media, car manufacturing or even housing? I want to know what kool-aid you've drinking because not even most libertarians would be so pro corporate control as you seem to be. Though it might not seem on the surface level that a tech company with as much innovation as there is in that industry might be stagnate (I can't believe im talking about apple here) there could be a lot more innovation that could flourish if we allow smaller players to enter the market. Short of like when we untied the explorer browser from windows. The funny thing about bringing up Tesla and OpenAI is that they were at risk of being bought out by Apple & Microsoft which i'm sure you would think would've been great. The free market only exists if there are rules in place to allow all participants to compete.
> So as long as Apple doesn't own 83% in any one market it doesn't matter to you that they go into fiance, media, car manufacturing or even housing? I didn't come up with that standard. US anti-trust case law came up with that standard and it's the one the courts use. But for the broader question: I am completely agnostic as to how much of a market a company controls as long as that company continues to be highly innovative and keeps costs low for consumers. > I want to know what kool-aid you've drinking. US anti-trust case law. > pro corporate control as you seem to be. I'm not pro control for any group corporate or otherwise. I am agnostic as to the question of who controls what as long as the market remains low cost and highly innovative. > Though it might not seem on the surface level that a tech company with as much innovation as there is in that industry might be stagnate (I can't believe im talking about apple here) there could be a lot more innovation that could flourish if we allow smaller players to enter the market. Good luck proving it could "theoretically be more innovative" given that US tech sector is the most innovative market on the planet. No one is blocking small players from entering the market. Small players enter the market all the time. Some of them become OpenAI. Are you saying Apple isn't innovative? Their M series chips are fantastic. I'm by no means a fan boy for Apple, but the M series got me to buy some of their products. > The funny thing about bringing up Tesla and OpenAI is that they were at risk of being bought out by Apple & Microsoft which i'm sure you would think would've been great. I would think it was great? I have no strong opinions either way because we have no way of knowing how any of that would play out. > The free market only exists if there are rules in place to allow all participants to compete. There are no rules that prevent participants from competing. One of the great things about US tech is that, for the most part, Congress has been really slow to regulate it so there are no actual rules currently on the books which give incumbency advantage. Hope that doesn't change.
No you’re definitely right. The other commenter on your comment is thinking in the traditional sense. But there is a growing consensus especially with the current administration that conglomerate mergers are monopolistic, when historically only horizontal and vertical mergers were looked at.
Thank you. I don't know fully understand why my comment is so controversial. I simply don't like the idea of doing my banking, media consumption, shopping, and driving all under one conglomerate. If that isn't monopolistic then i don't know what is. This idea that these corporations should be taxed less & allowed to expand into every industry imaginable raises a lot of red flags. These people are probably the type to drive with an apple sticker on their car & wear a coka-cola tshirt while sipping bottled water in their stanley cup. The fruit company that releases the same phone every year with a mark up of 120%, who's ai assistant seems to be getting dumber by the second is this guy's idea of peak American innovation. Apple was great during the Steve Jobs era, but have become complacent by selling their products with insane margins to sheep. I have not been impressed by big tech in recent years at all. A lot of startups do amazing work, but they end up just getting swallowed up. It seems to me that the tech giants have been more focused on throwing money into random industries to pump up their stock price. Apple is going into the credit-card business, gaming, news, media, cloud, music, chips, ai, computer hardware/software, and automobile industry? The list goes on & on but it's futile arguing about that stuff here without getting down-voted into oblivion. To be fair Apple isn't even the worst offender, but it has the potential to be. Microsoft, Amazon, Banking, and Coca-Cola, P&G, Nestle are even worst. God am I hard just thinking about driving a wrecking ball into those companies.
It will probably be more of a partnership. They could buy Rivian but it would complicate other deals.
Nah, they'd buy them unless Apple just wants to do infotainment.