Here’s what we know about the Apple car: Literally nothing. Oh, well, except for the fact that it’s doomed.
Writing for the lovely people and then the near-people and, eeugh, what is that? and OK, getting weirder, and finally that thing with eyes in its palms from Pan’s Labyrinth over at Business Insider, Matthew DeBord is so very sure the Apple car is DOA.
“This is why Tesla and Google are the future of cars—and Apple isn’t.” (Tip o’ the antlers to Nate Ardle.)
What’s the actual news event here? Tesla hired somebody. Ergo, Apple doomed. Look, if a kitten gets stuck in a tree and you can’t find a way to get Apple into the headline in a negative light then maybe writing for Business Insider just isn’t for you, OK?
Tesla just made a very smart move: it hired Peter Hochholdinger to oversee production of its vehicles.
Hochholdinger came from Audi, where he spent his entire career doing nothing but building Audis.
He built Audis at Audi. OK. That’s good. Probably better than building Toyotas. Or pillow forts. Or sandcastles of the mind.
But there’s a more important factor at play here: in the ongoing “disruption” of the traditional car business, it’s clear who’s serious and who isn’t.
Is the one who’s “not serious” maybe the one who hasn’t admitted it’s even making a car yet?
Tesla is unquestionably serious—there are over 100,000 Tesla vehicles on the road.
Disruption must be like freedom because at $76,500 apiece it’s clearly not free.
Google has racked up a huge number of miles with its driverless cars.
So have the bumper cars at Coney Island. They must also be disrupting the traditional car business since they’re getting just as many passengers from point A to point B safely.
Apple, meanwhile, most recently hired Chris Porritt, who was a high-ranking engineer at Tesla, but whose real claim to fame was his time at Aston Martin, where he created extremely expensive luxury cars that are 100 percent not intended to drive themselves.
Unlike Audis.
Er…
You know what’s great? Cupcakes. Have you tried these? They’re like little cakes in cup form. Delicious.
Just to be clear, Apple hiring a guy who worked at Aston Martin and Tesla: Loser move. Tesla hiring a guy who worked at Audi: Winner move. Got it?
No, the Macalope doesn’t understand it, either. But we have it. Like walking pneumonia.
But Apple looks like it’s either throwing spaghetti at the wall or trying to maintain some kind of cryptic placeholder so it doesn’t fall behind.
It’s inexplicable why Apple didn’t hire Stan Sigman before making the iPhone. The guy was a player! Golf, mostly. But what a handicap!
In a previous article detailing how doomed the Apple car is, DeBord at least allowed that Apple might not be hiring high-profile executives because it doesn’t want their “baggage.” Now, however, the company’s only flailing.
Maybe Apple has a well-thought-out plan in place for the Apple Car. But the company’s hiring and other decisions don’t point in that direction.
They’ve told us nothing about it and I have no idea what they’re doing! Updates quarterly as this situation unfolds or doesn’t, whatever, Business Insider is going to keep jamming Apple into car-related headlines no matter what.