Here’s How Apple Can Tackle the $230 Billion Luxury Car Market
The iPhone maker has an edge when it comes to design, software and maybe even batteries. But those advantages will only take it so far.
Getting serious about cars.
Photographer: Brittany Hosea-Small/AFP
If Apple Inc. is going to make a success of its car project, it has to target the $230 billion luxury automobile market. Doing so may be the only way to keep investors happy. But displacing 125-year-old incumbents like Mercedes-Benz won’t be straightforward.
The iPhone maker has reignited efforts to build its own vehicle, Reuters reported last month, though it’s at least five years away from production, Bloomberg News revealed on Thursday. Since the project started in 2014, Apple has undergone numerous false starts, laying off hundreds of staff in both 2016 and 2019, as costs ballooned and the focus shifted from electric vehicles to self-driving technology and back again. If Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook proceeds, he faces tough choices on how to enter a market with famously meager profitability.