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Elon Musk Talks Tesla, Apple, Model X
Nerval's Lobster writes "Tesla CEO Elon Musk admitted in a Bloomberg interview that he had engaged in 'conversations' with Apple, but refused to disclose the content of those talks. Rumors have circulated for several days that Apple executives met with Musk last spring about a possible acquisition. An anonymous source with knowledge of those discussions told SFGate.com that discussions included Adrian Perica, who heads up Apple's M&A division, and possibly Apple CEO Tim Cook. 'Both [Tesla and Apple] have built brands based on advanced engineering and stylish user-friendly design,' the newspaper noted. 'And each company has become a symbol of Silicon Valley innovation—even among people who don't own their products.' But in the interview, Musk framed an acquisition as 'very unlikely,' mostly because it would distract Tesla from its goal of building an affordable electric car. 'I don't see any scenario,' he added, in which Tesla could juggle the issues associated with a takeover while producing vehicles that met his perfectionist standards. He did suggest, however, that Apple's iOS and Google Android could find their respective ways into Tesla's in-vehicle software. Tesla executives once considered integrating an early version of Android into the company's first electric cars, but the software ultimately wasn't ready to serve as an automotive application. Nonetheless, Musk could see iOS or Android within the context of a 'projected mode or emulator' that would allow someone to use applications while driving, although 'that's peripheral to the goal of Tesla.'"
It still takes someone with both skills and leadership to run a company properly.
If you were on a boat, would you advocate throwing the captan overboard (assuming he wasn't bad) so that you and your shipmates can run things? Try it, and see how far you get before the next alpha male jockeys for power and control.
Why haven't the workers taken over and socialized the means of production yet? Why is our destiny as a species tied to the whims of a handful of super-wealthy idle parasites?
Because in the end most humans are still greedy chimps at the core. Give us power and we will abuse it, and we will do anything we can to not share it. It's just human nature.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
Maybe Apple will rent part of Tesla's factory, at least for a few years. Until Tesla makes enough cars to use the whole factory, they might appreciate the revenue of renting part of it to Apple. And Apple might want to manufacture some more devices in the US, without having to get as many permits as if they owned the factory.
I guess Apple would have less paperwork, environmental impact reports, etc. if they use a factory that already exists, than if they build a new factory. Does anyone know if that's true?
... he's about the only person alive who could be a believable successor to Steve Jobs. So he's got that going for him :)
yes, we have no bananas
Why haven't the workers taken over and socialized the means of production yet? Why is our destiny as a species tied to the whims of a handful of super-wealthy idle parasites?
Because in the end most humans are still greedy chimps at the core. Give us power and we will abuse it, and we will do anything we can to not share it. It's just human nature.
Quite true, but shaking up the foundations by having the less well off chimps feed on the corpses of the well to do chimps is good for a stagnant society.
Ultimately centralised power leads to abuse, decentralised power leads to anarchy which results in just as much abuse, just focused at the local level which leaves people wishing to centralise power.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
> Why is our destiny as a species tied to the whims of a handful of super-wealthy idle parasites?
Stop buying their products and using their services. Oops, takes two to tango.
The 2014 Honda Civic I have heard can interface with a phone via an HDMI cable. Full blown interfaces are inevitable, probably in less than 5 years.
... ]
The selling point of integration via HDMI is that vehicles no longer need to have their own navigation systems (which is extra equipment and rather pointless in the smartphone era) and instead uses the phone navigation app.
[Shorter version: Apple acquiring Tesla would be stupid for both companies. Tesla shouldn't exclude Android, Apple doesn't have an interest in the auto market --- and standard interfaces will be expected in the near future
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
Really? REALLY? First, I would hardly call Elon Musk an 'idle parasite'. Second, have you actually worked with the average American worker? You highly exaggerate the capability of the common man, while underestimating the importance of vision and leadership.
Tesla's cars actually are just a status symbol. They're truly only affordable to people who otherwise would have no trouble buying gasoline and want the warm fuzzy feeling (or the arrogant smugness) that comes from knowing your car is running on less fossil fuel than everyone else's 100% dinosaur burners.
Or, maybe they want to help usher in the electric car era by:
- helping Telsa make a *profit* so that economies of scale eventually make the cars more affordable;
- showing jealous luddites (looking at YOU) that the cars are practical
Hoax
Electric cars are not yet a mature product. Just as computers weren't back in the early 1980s, when they either cost a fortune and didn't do much, or cost less and did much less. Electric cars are at that stage now, but whereas some people will be content to sit back and wait for it to mature, then jump on the bandwagon, others will be in the right place at the right time with the money and the vision to be the one to take it from expensive luxury that doesn't do much (in this case, range) to a mature product. Someone has to do it. Tesla are doing it on their own, they almost failed before they got a big injection of cash from investors and the govt., but even better would be for a company like Apple to back them financially while giving them a free rein. If not Apple, then someone else - if GM or Ford had any sense they'd be doing it, but they don't have the vision or the money, and they're to entrenched in the old world.
Also, per percentage of fires per number of units sold, Apple's products are significantly less likely to spontaneously catch fire. Hey don't flame me, it's actually true.
Although there is a difference between a product warning you to pull over and get out versus just exploding on your lap.
Not A Sig
Optimized, decentralized power leads to synergy. Shithead leaders destroy this solid config.
Yup. Look at all the gluten free places that are popping up! Those of us with Celiac disease are fucked because of the prices currently but there is a market starting to pop up now that a lot of people are becoming aware that they have it. Therefore the prices will go down do to demand.
I'm looking forward to being able to afford to not feel miserable all the time one day.
Electric cars are not yet a mature product. Just as computers weren't back in the early 1980s, when they either cost a fortune and didn't do much, or cost less and did much less. Electric cars are at that stage now, but whereas some people will be content to sit back and wait for it to mature, then jump on the bandwagon, others will be in the right place at the right time with the money and the vision to be the one to take it from expensive luxury that doesn't do much (in this case, range) to a mature product.
Unlike personal computing, cell phones or flat panel televisions, electric cars are not a new technology. They have been around in one form or another, since the 1880s. Vehicle body construction and electric motor design are both very well understood disciplines, as most advances in these areas had significant applications outside their use in electric cars.
The technological limitation that's holding back electric cars has always been a lack of energy density in the batteries. Fixing that would be a holy grail for a number of different industries (imagine a smartphone that can last an entire week of heavy usage before needing to be recharged). Now, maybe it would be admirable if Tesla was fleecing the rich and dumping all the money back into battery R&D - but they're not. Elon has even said they're not much interested in pursuing fuel cell technology. They're buying off-the-shelf batteries from the same suppliers that build batteries for the rest of the portable electronics industry. Since batteries are a resource intensive product (they're made from commodity materials that must be mined and processed), there is always going to be a fixed cost associated with their production. Here's a free hint: more electric cars being sold will only put more demand on battery manufacturers, and I don't have to explain how supply and demand works.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Although there is a difference between a product warning you to pull over and get out versus just exploding on your lap.
Maybe they're just saving fire warnings for iOS 8.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Why haven't the workers taken over and socialized the means of production yet? Why is our destiny as a species tied to the whims of a handful of super-wealthy idle parasites?
They did, in my country. And our destiny as a nation became tied to the whims of a handful of super-powerful idle parasites.
Tesla would want to take over Apple why, exactly? What has Apple done that was interesting, lately?
Of course, I hear Facebook has paid out heavily for a random new crowd/media company, so. Dot.com bubble 2.0?
They're buying off-the-shelf batteries from the same suppliers that build batteries for the rest of the portable electronics industry. Since batteries are a resource intensive product (they're made from commodity materials that must be mined and processed), there is always going to be a fixed cost associated with their production. Here's a free hint: more electric cars being sold will only put more demand on battery manufacturers, and I don't have to explain how supply and demand works.
You are dead-on with with the reflection on the maturity of electric vehicles. They've been around a LONG time.
But regarding battery manufacturing, you may have missed the recent news about Tesla's plans for building the world's largest battery factory this year - it seems that Musk has anticipated your concern:
http://gigaom.com/2014/02/19/t...
Don't sweat the petty things. But do pet the sweaty things.
Oh man, I can't wait for the iTesla. The whole exterior will be made out of smooth black glass; hell, the interior too. You'll only be able to download power from the iVolts store and the power won't be compatible with any other electronic device. It'll cost twice as much as a regular Tesla, but the interface is soooo much better. You just swipe the dashboard to make it go, press the button to make it stop and swipe left or right to steer. Who needs all those stupid buttons and wheels and crap? Plus, Apple will be able to patent the rounded tire, which will keep all those plebian imitators like Ford and BMW from usng rounded tires when we know Jobs innovated them.
I know Tesla doesn't want to have dealerships, but what if the talks had to do with some Apple Stores also becoming Tesla dealerships, at least in the states that are giving Tesla legal woes over selling directly to consumers?
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
Also that the resources required to build batteries are hardly fully developed. You can build a new mine and plan for the price of the commodity to drop if you expect to make it up in volume - to date though, that hasn't really been true of the battery market.
He did suggest, however, that Apple's iOS and Google Android could find their respective ways into Tesla's in-vehicle software.
Do not want!
I don't want to be forced to jailbreak my car in order to do with it what I please.
You consider musk an idle parasite?
Unlike personal computing, cell phones or flat panel televisions, electric cars are not a new technology. They have been around in one form or another, since the 1880s. (...) The technological limitation that's holding back electric cars has always been a lack of energy density in the batteries.
Sure, but the power grid was extremely different back then. If you had it - which by far most didn't - it was barely good enough to power light bulbs, not cars. Sure you could wire up a bunch of car batteries, drive it a little while but then it'd take a month to recharge. Between stoves, refridgerators, dish washers, washing machines, computers, TVs, power tools and whatnot it's only recently come to a point where in-home charging of a car is feasible. Even now they're suffering from growth pains just like the Internet adapted to Napster and YouTube, but they will pass. The other things is that there was no public charging grid, even if you got yourself an industrial size electric connection at home you'd be stuck in your little range circle. And unlike at home were you can reasonably be expected to let it charge overnight, on the road chargers must be much faster and stronger.
Tesla's superchargers do 120 kW/car (here in Norway, I understand slightly lower in the US at the moment) and by their nature you want them in the middle of "nowhere" between cities. I don't know their total capacity - probably some oversubscription - but again I think it's something that only in very recent times has become feasible. Not to mention the rapid charging technology itself is very much state of the art. In short, even if we can't make miracles on density we are making huge advances in distribution and delivery. And as EVs become more popular, the grid will become more fine masked.
I think there's really four ranges to an EV:
1. Round-trip range - just charge at home, drive around and plug in when you get back home. No fuss, can use any parking spot.
2. One-way range - if you have a charger at the office or cabin or shopping center parking lot or whereever you're going.
3. Range with charging(s) - hopefully not too many snack breaks.
4. You just can't do it. Go rent an ICE.
If you break it down to percentages, most people's commutes and general shopping are in the first one. I know the Tesla has pushed interest in getting more power to cabins - not the "deep in the forest/mountains" cabin but the beachhouse and alpine skiing cabin that are in populated areas with a decent power grid. The third one is the one with most advances, it's not pretty or easy but you can do it the 1% of the time you need to. Really, if you can get rid of #4 and fulfill the 90%+ of driving inside #1 it's a winner. And they are making a lot of progress on shifting #4 into #3 through chargers, I mean it wouldn't be my first choice but that you can drive a Tesla coast to coast means you don't have to get an ICE.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Electric cars are not yet a mature product.
Unlike personal computing, cell phones or flat panel televisions, electric cars are not a new technology. They have been around in one form or another, since the 1880s.
Yes, and they have been a niche technology since ICEs won out in the early 1900s, and that's why they're not as mature.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Meme
Educate the chimps, then you can distribute the burden of making decisions. That's why democracy with education on the back of reasoned thinking and questioning, defending free speech, and all that, are needed, so that most people can make a useful contribution to making things work. You could be the most benevolent dictator but simply not have the mind capacity to organise a large nation. It isn't about power for the sake of power and greed. If it was that, who cares if one chimp wins over the rest? Revolt so a different chimp can take over? So what if workers take over the means of production. What happens when an individual then invents something which obsoletes the stuff made at the factory by the workers? Should the workers protect the staus quo? So then that one guy or gal ends up with a lot of wealth because they've just replaced a more expensive to make product with a cheaper alternative. So now his workers have to revolt and take over that new gizmo. Life just doesn't happen in a smooth simple continuously fair way.
Wireless mirroring is already a feature of iOS devices and AFAICT it can be done with Android too. This would be less cumbersome than HDMI cabling and avoid a clunky connector and adapter (at least for iOS phones).
There's only two pieces missing from it -- remote touch, so you can use the car's built-in dash screen for control and display fitting, so the phone's display is formatted to fit the car screen's aspect ratio.
The latter may be more complicated given the way apps seem to be written for iOS in regard to screen size (eg, updates to support iPhone 5, 1x/2x mode on iPad). The easiest 'fix' would seem to be a car display close in aspect ratio to iPhone (just larger to make it driver-friendly).
Remote touch doesn't seem like it would be that hard to add, and for all I know its baked into mirroring, just not enabled. You could even disable display the keyboard or video playback as long as the vehicle is in motion (my Volvo does something similar with its in-built menu system; most of it is unavailable when the car is in motion).
The phone display could just be another tab/view of the car's in-dash display which could then dispense with navigation apps and everything else that doesn't involve the controlling the car's components like HVAC or built-in radio.
hello every body
Buy your iTesla today!
Both Google and Apple are swimming in money that they just can not seem to find a good way to spend. Google really seems to hate the idea of becoming a hardware company but Apple is all about hardware. I could see a Tesla with Apple IOS for the infotainment system being a huge hit. Google and their love of self driving cars could be a fit. Imagine a self driving Tesla? Right now both Apple and Google are trying to decide "what next".
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Because building a factory magically makes the world's Lithium production increase without new mineral exploration or mining capacity?
Here's a free hint: more electric cars being sold will only put more demand on battery manufacturers, and I don't have to explain how supply and demand works.
No need to explain. We get it: larger demand will lead to economies of scale and mass production so prices will drop massively, like they've done for solar cells.
Thanks for reminding us of that.
How may electronic circuits has Musk designed?
Fuck all. Like most rent-seekers.
A captain rarely owns the ship the ship he captains though.
I think that what one ought to imagine here is something like a smith who doesn't own his tools, but has access to tools which he does not control, with his tool access and the tool access of many other smiths entirely at the mercy of some large tool-owner.
Tesla is about cars, American cars, going fast and feeling good, you know vrooom vrooom. Heck, even saving gas these days and being non-Detroit is fine. But I sure as heck don't need any more closed source digital crap in my life, let alone spying on it and trying to siphon off more of my dollars at every turn. Screw that, Apple can stay the FUCK out of my car.
Idle, no. But Paypal and SpaceX are utterly parasitical. SpaceX is particularly insidious, as it's basically a new Boeing but with cheap first hits - but, when Boeing was young, it actually spearheaded aerospace research, so had an entitlement to reward. SpaceX was only able to start up because the government feels an irrational ideological compulsion to cripple its own aerospace operations and contract out production.
Tesla is like Apple: good at integrating tech and bringing it to the masses, overrated as an innovator, but mostly harmless. It might end up branching out and producing a car useful for the masses, which would actually go some way to dealing with our reliance on oil, or it might just stick with producing toys for the boys. IDK. I still have hope for it, as long as Musk tones down on the arrogance.
As for your unsupported remarks about the "average American worker", the only thing which worries me is the protestant work ethic which makes average Americans willing to work so hard for so little. I am not American, but I have worked in America, and I have only a slightly sorrowful respect for their honest, eager effort.
You are missing the point entirely, and it's a testament to the critical analysis skills of modern /. that you've been modded up
The captain is a competent worker who is perfectly entitled to a slice of the ship, but he rarely has one. Socialism (meant in the original sense, not the corrupted Fox sense) would give an ownership interest to the captain and to all the sailors.
I'm sorry, could someone define "affordable"? Starting in the mid-60's is nowhere near affordable, and unless Tesla's plan include slashing that to 1/3 of the price, I don't see anyone calling it affordable.
An idiot can run a company Mostly common sense Pick any one off street and assuming they are middle class people Odds are they can run a company (ie not crazy, etc) Odds are they may be able do a better job
The fun thing about Capitalism is that if you believe this you can at any time start your own company and become one of the wealthy "rent seekers".
Since you (presumably) haven't does that I'm going to figure you're full of shit.
Both Google and Apple are swimming in money that they just can not seem to find a good way to spend.
Very true but they aren't going to change industries altogether. Apple is going to remain in consumer electronics and Google is going to remain in advertising. Getting into the auto business would be very foolish of them since they have no particular expertise to bring to the table there. Google is doing some interesting research projects with cars but that's a very far cry from producing real products they sell to retail customers. Furthermore if they buy Tesla they likely are limiting their ability to sell to any other auto maker (GM, Ford etc) and that is likely to be a MUCH bigger market.
Google really seems to hate the idea of becoming a hardware company but Apple is all about hardware.
This is somewhat of a myth. Yes Apple works hard on making some very nice hardware and they do have some real expertise but at their core Apple is a software company. There really is very little difference on the inside between a Mac and a Dell. Put Windows on a Mac and you'd be hard pressed to tell who made the computer unless you looked at the box. Same with the iPhone, the underlying electronics aren't much different than their competitors. Same with the iPad. Furthermore Apple designs the hardware but they don't make it and have outsourced most of what manufacturing expertise they once possessed to specialist companies.
Apple makes money by selling a bunch of software that they tie to their own hardware. NOBODY would pay a premium for a Mac that ran Windows only, no matter how nice the box. So what that really means is that people are buying the software. What sets Apple products apart (for better or worse) is their software. Apple just realizes that the best channel to sell their software is by bundling it with hardware they design and control. This costs them market share but so far has brought them tremendous profits.
A captain rarely owns the ship he captains though.
This depends greatly on the size of the boat.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
You can buy an iphone at walmart but they are pricey compared to an android.
The thing I found amusing was it sounded like Musk was denying he intended to buy out Apple. {I would have expected that to go the other way}
Musk framed an acquisition as 'very unlikely,' mostly because it would distract Tesla from its goal of building an affordable electric car
That's precisely what Tesla is planning to do. Slice the price at least to half in the Gen-III car (Model E) and then further in the Gen-IV car. Gen-III is 3-4 years out, Gen-IV probably 3-4 after that. Price goal for Model E is ~30-35k$ and with savings from gasoline and service should be equivalent to 20-25k$ cars in total cost of ownership.
Of course not. For starters, the guy works 80 hours a week--or at least he said once he's trying to get it DOWN to 80 hours a week. The man is far from a parasite. Not that there aren't CEOs who are parasites, but Musk is clearly not one of them.
Because the short work week in France and long siesta in Spain is doing wonders for their respective economies. Furthermore, the majority of Americans don't work as hard as everyone seems to believe. You don't know what being overworked is until you've been anywhere in Asia; they just don't complain about it like Americans do.
If nothing else, both companies desperately need better battery technology. Could be they were talking about swapping patents or joint R&D.
What does this button d$#%* NO CARRIER
Except that even the smallest electric cars already have a range WAY over the average commute.
Humans actually share characteristics of both the "greedy chimps" and the "loving bonobos", with more of the bonobo than the chimp being present in our genetic makeup. We could never have made it this far as a species without cooperation and solidarity being essential traits to humanity.
Even if I don't really consider Musk specifically very idle, I would certainly agree. We are still tied to the capitalist mode of production where it is the few who own the means of production and the majority who has to do the actual work in order to enrich these few individuals. It's a matter of democracy really, if we really want to democracy then a burgeouis "democracy" cannot be the endpoint, simply because it does not adequately represent the people. Those truly in power are those who own the means of production, and until the people truly controls the means of production, we cannot claim to have democracy. Working hard and earning money is perfectly fine, but there's simply no way for any individuals to work so hard that they themselves would be entitled to such a large swath of the wealth in the world. Consider that the 85 most wealthy individuals own as much as the 3.5 *billion* poorest people in the world [1]. This is not wealth obtained from hard work, this is wealth obtained through ruthless exploitation of the working class, worldwide.
[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/la...
Nice rumour mongering on this one. I'll suggest it's battery related. It's no secret that Tesla is planning the worlds largest LiON cell plant. They're planning on being the largest user of LiON cells on the planet... I'm guessing that Apple is right up there too. Tesla will need partners... some with cash, some with tech. Apple fits the cash bill...
You mean people with too much money and not enough intelligence to manage it well?
...Apple doesn't actually make hardware. They design pretty cases and stuff hardware designed by other companies in to it and then add their own fascist operating system to ensure complete compliance with their vision.
They are not buying off-the shelf batteries. They use an off-the-shelf form factor but that's about it. They use their own chemistry which is different than all of the other electric vehicles in that it has significantly higher energy density and a lower cost. Even the 16550 cells they use are customized in a number of ways to reduce cost. Panasonic is manufacturing the cells, but the IP is owned by Tesla and they can just as easily go to other manufacturers.
As for battery cost, they gain due to economies of scale. They are looking to build a new "giga factory" for batteries with other partners to further reduce the cost. Since they will be one of the major investors in that it will help them reduce cost further.
Tesla also has a huge amount of R&D in their battery management. The other manufacturers are using a more stable chemistry but it is more expensive and has a much lower energy density. Tesla's battery management addresses it so they get good reliability out of their packs and high energy density while keeping cost under control. That is also why they are selling battery packs to Toyota and Daimler. Tesla also has a lot of R&D in the electric motor which they manufacture themselves as well as the drive electronics. In fact, Tesla manufactures more if its own parts than just about any other automobile manufacturer including things like aluminum casting and injection molding.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Apple didn't change the phone business?
Apple brought computers to the phone business and computers were a business Apple was already in and already understood very well. Phones are basically computers and Apple brought this fact front and center. Despite the fact that they are increasingly digital, automobiles are not computers and there is a vast amount of engineering expertise in them that is WAY outside Apple's wheelhouse. (suspensions, motors, etc) I suppose nothing is impossible but I really can't see Apple getting into the car business if for no other reason than profit margin. The most profitable auto manufacturers have net margins around 8-10%. Apple's net margins are north of 25%. If Tim Cook got into a low margin business like cars he'd be out of his job probably faster than you could say "shareholder lawsuit".
It's obviously anecdotal, and I can't even provide a citation, but I sure remember reading people say they did exactly this... I thought it was even here on Slashdot. Bought a MacBook, wiped it, and ran only Windows on it.
That's pretty much the definition of the exception that proves the rule. If Apple were dumb enough to sell Macs with Windows, there would be essentially zero reason to buy a Mac. A Mac is OS X. Apple is fundamentally a software company that sells their software in some custom hardware.
Apple went from a computer company to a mobile phone company and media company.
Apple went from a computer focused consumer electronics company to a more general consumer electronics company. Phones, tablets, MP3 players, digital music and personal computers are all just different forms of consumer electronics. Apple's real expertise is in the software that goes into these devices. Love them or hate them, their software is what keeps people buying from Apple as opposed to Dell or Sony. It's what really differentiates their products.
The problem Apple (and Google) are running into is the law of big numbers. For Apple to grow by around 8% next year they will have to create enough new revenue equal to a company the size of eBay. That is hard to do and the number of products they can make or buy that will move the needle that much is pretty small. Even if they were to buy Telsa, Tesla's revenues are a rounding error to Apple (about $2 billion with basically zero profit versus $170 billion with $37 billion in profit) even if you ignore the fact that Tesla's stock is absurdly overpriced right now. Buying Tesla even for a fair price does not appear to make any financial or strategic sense for either company.
Google is also into a lot of markets now as well.
Google dabbles in a lot of stuff but their business is advertising and that accounts for virtually all their revenue. Almost all these other things they dabble in are to support the advertising engine. Google built Android as a defensive play so that they wouldn't be beholden to Apple or Microsoft or Nokia or Samsung for advertising revenue. Google does not and probably never will make a lot of money on Android directly. Google got into maps and email and most of the other things they are dealing with to keep their lead in information so that they would be the go to source for search and thus advertising. They're putting money into some stuff that is speculative like robots and self driving cars but these do not appear to be serious efforts at diversification. If Google wants to diversify away from advertising they haven't done anything yet that will substantially accomplish that.
GE was a company that made electrical products to one that makes just about everything including jet engines.
GE is a conglomerate. There are very very few successful big conglomerates. I can only think of a few off hand worthy of the name. (GE, Berkshire Hathaway, Siemens, Tyco, and a few others) It's obscenely difficult to manage companies that are in wildly different industries. However, GE is really in just a few businesses when you look at them big picture. Manufacturing, financial products, infrastructure and consumer products. Most of what they do falls under one of those headings. If it doesn't or if they aren't the market leader, they sell the business to someone else. It's not easy to successfully turn a company that isn't a conglomerate into one that is. The management skill sets required are very different. Just because you are good ad managing a tech company doesn't mean you will be any good at finance or auto manufacturing.
GM, Ford, and Chrysler where all very diversified at one point.
And now they are not. What does that tell you? They tried to be diversified back in the middle of the 20th century when conglomerates were kind of the in thing to do. This eventually proved to be a bad idea for most companies that tried. Diversification is a two edged sword and while it might protect against industry specific cycles, it doesn't (usuallly) protect against macroeconomic cycles. Furthermore diversification often has the effect of distracting management. Most successful conglomerates (like GE or Berkshire Hathaway) basically run the businesses they own as standalone businesses and focus on capital allocation.
Both Tesla and Apple make extensive use of lithium ion batteries. The most logical scenario would be for the two companies to discuss a joint effort to enter into an R&D contract to develop longer-lived batteries and a quicker charging mechanism. Apple's problem is that their equipment burns through batteries quickly, while Tesla's vehicles are limited by the range of the batteries. Both have significant need for longer lived batteries and so it would make sense that they might enter into a joint venture to produce longer lasting, higher capacity batteries without adding weight to the end product.
Because the short work week in France and long siesta in Spain is doing wonders for their respective economies. Furthermore, the majority of Americans don't work as hard as everyone seems to believe. You don't know what being overworked is until you've been anywhere in Asia; they just don't complain about it like Americans do.
There are different kinds of hard work. Germany is doing well, despite the massive amounts of holiday time they get. Canada's doing pretty well despite the significant number of crown corporations (read: socialized infrastructure). Farmers in the US work hard, but are being edged out. Many in the IT industry in the US are working 60-80hr work weeks (as are many CEOs and other C level employees). When you get beyond that point, you have to make up the losses in quality with quantity of workers -- which is what has traditionally been done in many parts of Asia; but they're trying to change that now, which will undoubtedly result in higher pay and shorter hours if they want to compete (at least for the managers and designers) after taking on board all the lessons learned from watching the West.
I think that what one ought to imagine here is something like a smith who doesn't own his tools, but has access to tools which he does not control
That's a terrible analogy. Like a programmer, a smith can make his own tools. A carpenter would have been a far better analogy.
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No, it's fairly good. A smith needs substantial infrastructure to do what he does, his whole smithy with numerous tools which represent a high capital cost. A carpenter does not have quite the same capital cost although an analogy with a carpenter instead of a smith does have definite appeal. Especially now that I come to think of Hogarth print in which there is an image of a carpenter pawning his saw.
All a smith needs is coal, steel or iron, wind, and water. The only tool he would have a hard time building himself would be the anvil, those are usually cast. The forge isn't all that hard to construct (maybe the fan or bellows) and all the other tools are trivial to make.
The only real cost is steel and fuel unless you have your own mine.
I took a blacksmithing workshop in college and one of the things the 74 year old instructor stressed most was that a blacksmith who doesn't make his own tools isn't much of a blacksmith. He taught us how to make all sorts of tools.
Who makes hammers and tongs? The blacksmith. Who writes compilers? Programmers. Maybe I'm getting old but a programmer who can't write a compiler or interpreter isn't much of a programmer (I wrote an interpreter once, years ago).
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