If Apple goes ahead with an electric car, Volkswagen won’t be too concerned about that. According Reuters, VW chief Herbert Diess said Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung in an interview that his company “was not afraid” of an Apple car. The auto industry is not a technology sector that you can “take over with a single stroke,” said the CEO. Whatever Apple brought to the table, it would not dominate “overnight.”
Diess said it would make sense for Apple to enter the area, as it has battery, design and software skills. Rumors suggest that Apple is betting on an “innovative” battery design that would offer more reach. It can also be safer and more ethical, eliminating the use of cobalt (sometimes extracted with child labor). LiDAR and other technologies would give him autonomous driving skills.
Apple faces several obstacles to putting a car into production. In addition to the challenges of making an advanced EV with autonomy, it also needs to align partners if it is not going to manufacture the cars or components by itself – and Hyundai just said it is no longer talking to Apple about a team. The reported target for 2024 is still years away, and any technology that is revolutionary can now be modest.
At the same time, VW may not want to be too comfortable. Remember how Palm CEO Ed Colligan said in 2006 that Apple “wouldn’t just get into” the smartphone business? And remember what happened to Palm? Apple has a history of shaking the competitive landscape when it enters a product category. Although VW certainly has a stronger position in electric cars than Palm in phones, it may not want to assume that its position is unassailable.