Apple car business group emerges, from Tesla and Ford employees | game slot penghasil uang 2021, herospin88 rtp

Jianyue Car Review Author: Yu Jianyue

This is bad news for the traditional automobile industry. Apple’s huge automobile business group has officially surfaced.

Doug Field, the former No. 3 person at Tesla and the senior vice president responsible for vehicle R&D and manufacturing of the entire Tesla company, officially updated his LinkedIn identity information and did not disappoint everyone. The title is the vice president of Apple's Special Projects Group (hereinafter referred to as SPG).

If you search on LinkedIn, Apple SPG has nearly 1,200 employees, of which more than 300 are from Tesla and more than 170 are from Ford. Of course, this is only a portion of the total number of employees in Apple’s automotive business group.

There is no doubt that SPG is the Apple Automotive Business Group.

One

For a long time before this, managers from automobile companies who joined Apple did not dare to openly indicate their job description as Apple SPG on their LinkedIn.

For example, Johann Jungwirth, the current chief digital officer of the Volkswagen Group, used his disguised identity as the hardware engineering director of Apple Mac when working at Apple; Aindrea Campbell, a Ford body structure and stamping expert, had an even more ridiculous identity, actually being the director of iPad operations.

Chris Gerdes, a professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University, once complained: "Oh my god, if you find any automotive-related executive in Silicon Valley who suddenly leaves and their whereabouts are unknown, they will probably go to Apple."

However, the era of such concealment has passed.

Because Doug Field has clearly marked his identity as the vice president of Apple SPG, it means that the Apple car project will officially enter the stage of history in the form of SPG. Compared with the official debut, it only needs to be marked with an iCar icon.

Prior to this, Jaime Waydo, the head of autonomous driving system integration at Google's sister company Waymo, joined Apple and has already walked around the world as a senior director of SPG. However, Apple’s self-driving business, Tim Cook, made it public in June 2017, and people were not surprised.

There are always some people who have illusions that maybe Apple's SPG is just developing an autonomous driving system.

Now, what Doug Field has done has shattered those people's illusions.

The situation of Doug Field and Jaime Waydo are completely different, because he is a "senior auto industry person" through and through. Who in Silicon Valley does not know Doug Field?

At Tesla, this old man is regarded as a "CEO" without a CEO "title", but when Musk is not in the company, everyone knows that Doug Field is the person who gives orders at Tesla. Doug Field is also directly responsible for the research and development of all Tesla models. In 2017, he took over the manufacturing business at Musk's request.

But it was the mass production of Model 3 that led to the end of the friendship between Doug Field and Musk.

In April 2018, Musk went shirtless and moved into Tesla's Fremont production plant. In May 2018, Doug Field was reported to be on leave. Tesla urgently "refuted the rumors", saying that Doug Field was just taking a break due to personal and family reasons and would return to work soon.

Musk has tweeted @Doug Field many times on social media, and he did not hesitate to praise him, but he still did not change his intention to leave Doug Field. You know, most of Tesla's top executives were driven away by Musk, and Doug Field is one of the few Tesla top executives that Musk tried hard to retain but failed.

In July 2018, Tesla public relations was forced to speak out, saying that Doug Field would leave Tesla and publicly express his gratitude for his contribution to Tesla over the past five years.

In August 2018, Apple, which has always kept a low profile on personnel news, unprecedentedly confirmed to the media that Tesla’s senior vice president Doug Field had joined Apple.

When Doug Field publicly appeared as the vice president of Apple's SPG, it meant that the company's "mysterious organization" was marked with a distinct automotive brand. As of now, Doug Field is SPG’s only vice president, and he should be the 17th Apple executive to report directly to Tim Cook.

The outline of Apple’s automotive business group has gradually become clearer.

The project started at the end of 2014 and has at least 5,000 employees so far. On the USPTO website, if Apple is used as the keyword in the name of the assignee and vehicle is used as the keyword in all options, 711 results can be obtained. Of course, there are more Apples. The car trademark was not applied for by Apple; the group has a test fleet of 66 self-driving cars and 111 drivers in California alone, ranking third in the world; Apple SPG's R&D centers are located in Silicon Valley in the United States, Ottawa in Canada, Berlin in Germany, and Zurich in Switzerland...

Two

More often than not, traditional car people tend to believe that the automotive industry has a very high threshold, and it is difficult for Apple, which is a consumer electronics company, to enter this industry chain.

Now it seems that such thoughts are self-consoling. There are two reasons:

First of all, because no traditional company can resist Apple's poaching offensive globally.

In 2013, Yves Saint Laurent CEO Paul Deneve was poached by Apple and only received the VP title; in May 2014, Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts was poached by Cook with an annual salary of US$40 million and got the position of SVP. Of course, Apple now gives her an annual salary of US$70 million; CEO of Daimler-Benz North American R&D Center, he joined Apple in 2014 and only got the title of Mac Engineering Director. After switching to the Volkswagen Group, he was promoted to CDO; John, Google’s senior vice president of search and AI After Giannandrea joined Apple, he only received a VP position; similarly, with an annual income of US$20 million, he was also the highest-paid executive at Tesla. Doug Field also only received a VP title at Apple.

Compared with traditional automobile companies, technology companies have a great advantage in salary levels, which puts traditional automobiles at a disadvantage in the competition for top talents. With the salary level of a director position, Apple can almost recruit most senior executives in the automotive industry and give them enough room for salary increases.

This allows Apple to recruit high-quality talents from the traditional automotive industry as needed.

Since 2014, Apple has accumulated enough experts in the field of automotive R&D and manufacturing to solve engineering R&D and manufacturing problems. Some Apple executives worthy of attention in the field of automotive engineering and manufacturing include:

Doug Field, Vice President of Apple SPG, former Senior Vice President of Engineering and Manufacturing at Tesla, has 11 years of experience in the automotive industry and 14 years of experience in consumer electronics. In the past five years, he has been responsible for the R&D and manufacturing of all Tesla models. Before joining Tesla, he was the vice president of hardware engineering for Apple Mac and also had experience in product development. Before that, I worked at Sega for 9 years and left Sega as CTO. His first job started with Ford, where he did 6 years in research and development.

Doug Field has rich experience in traditional automotive R&D and consumer electronics development, and has long-term working experience at Apple. He is undoubtedly a very suitable leader for Apple SPG.

Chris Porritt, Apple SPG product development manager (PD Administrator), has 31 years of experience in the automotive industry. Former vice president of Tesla, he worked in engineering research and development for two years. Before Chris Porritt went to Tesla, he was the chief engineer of Aston Martin and worked there for 16 years. He has 10 years of working experience in Land Rover and became the chief engineer of Land Rover. Chris Porritt has been with Apple for 2 years and 10 months.

Alexander Hitzinger, Head of Product Design at Apple SPG, has 21 years of experience in the automotive industry. His last job was the technical director of the Porsche 919 and he stayed at Porsche for 5 years. Before going to Porsche, he was the head of advanced technology for the F1 Red Bull Racing Team. Alexander Hitzinger has extensive experience in high-performance car development and has been with Apple for 2 years and 7 months.

Steve Kenner, Apple SPG Product Integration Director, has 40 years of working experience in the automotive industry. Most recently, he was global director of Ford's Safety Office. I have been with Apple for 3 years and 7 months.

Huibert Mees, Chassis Design Director of Apple SPG, his last job was Chassis Engineering Director of Tesla. He worked in this position at Tesla for 6 years. Before going to Tesla, he worked at Ford Motor Co., Ltd.He has been engaged in chassis system research and development work for 15 years. It has been 3 years and 5 months since I joined Apple.

Aindrea Campbell, Apple SPG body design director, has 20 years of experience in the automotive industry. Previously, he was a Ford body structure and lightweight expert. At Ford, he was responsible for the aluminum body and innovative material applications of the F-150, the world's largest-selling model. He has rich experience in body stamping and body-in-white production line design, and is a Six Sigma black belt. It has been 3 years and 2 months since I joined Apple.

So, Apple Automotive Business Group has more than 20 years of experience in the automotive industry in terms of chassis, power system, body, safety and overall research and development. The models it has developed include all Tesla models, Porsche 919, Ford F150, Aston Martin, and Land Rover.

Judging from this R&D lineup, anyone who is a professional traditional car person will probably come to a rational conclusion. This team may have some challenges in R&D, but it is not a wise move to try to use engineering R&D as a barrier for Apple to enter the automotive industry.

Secondly, in addition to people, Apple also has money and a brand.

Apple's automotive business group can integrate all suppliers very easily. Even the world's most powerful chip suppliers, power battery suppliers, and component suppliers are unlikely to give up the opportunity to do business with Apple.

For all suppliers that have business cooperation with Apple, as soon as the news comes out, there is a high probability that the stock price will directly rise to the limit.

Apple's automotive business group has the world's top vehicle engineering R&D team, plenty of money on hand, and strong brand appeal to attract suppliers. Against this background, wishful thinking that Apple can't build a car is probably deceiving itself.

Three

For the traditional automobile industry, the emergence of Apple's automotive business group on the stage is a "double-edged sword."

The downsides are obvious.

First of all, if they cannot stop Apple in the traditional hardware manufacturing and supply chain, traditional car companies will need to compete with Apple in areas where Apple is good at, such as autonomous driving, automotive OS+ application ecosystem, chips, AI, AR and VR.

Each of the above areas is a platform-level product. If you want to do it well, you need to invest billions or even tens of billions of dollars in research and development expenses, and it may not be possible to achieve it.

Apple has accumulated enough experience in these fields and continues to increase investment in research and development. It would be an impossible task for a single traditional car company to compete with Apple in so many fields. A wise strategy is for traditional car companies to join forces vertically and horizontally. For example, General Motors and Honda jointly develop autonomous driving, and Toyota joins forces with Mazda, Suzuki, Subaru, Daihatsu, Hino and other companies to jointly develop electric vehicle platforms. In addition, Chinese technology companies such as Baidu and Alibaba must be introduced to jointly develop certain key technology platforms to make up for shortcomings.

Secondly, automotive products will be redefined.

It turns out that the core function of a car is a travel tool, which solves the problem of people moving from point A to point B. People's biggest demand for cars is that they have good power and mechanical performance, are safe enough and are comfortable during the movement.

In the future, in addition to being used for travel, cars will also be mobile spaces, mobile computing terminals, mobile energy terminals, mobile cameras, mobile thermometers, mobileRobot...

As more and more application software are developed, the above-mentioned functions of cars will be greatly developed. People's use of cars will not only be 5% of the original use for travel, but will be greatly improved, even 100%. "It" can also be used while you sleep, such as taking a nap in the car.

For car companies, the challenges in product definition and product integration are probably no less challenging than the research and development of core components.

In the past 100 years, the product definition of traditional cars has basically not exceeded the scope of travel tools. Against this background, traditional car companies have formed a capability system centered on engineering research and development and supply chain management and manufacturing, and the product definition function has become increasingly weak.

As a result, the reserves in terms of talent team, capability system and methodology are difficult to adapt to the fierce market competition environment that will follow, and changes are urgently needed.

Finally, the redefinition of products will inevitably be accompanied by the iteration of business models.

For example, Apple mainly focuses on direct sales, with unified prices and a relatively consistent service system; in addition, Apple's ecological value-added services have become the company's largest source of profit in addition to hardware sales.

Traditional car companies face very big challenges if they want to follow the above business model. On the one hand, it is impossible to throw the existing dealer system aside; on the other hand, there is no decent starting point for car owner operations and value-added services.

Of course, the benefits of Apple entering the automotive industry are obvious.

1. Although competition will become more intense, the overall salary level of employees in the automobile industry will definitely rise. If a car company wants to become a technology company, it must first adjust its salary system to become a technology company.

2. Competition will be more intense, product experience will be better, and cost performance will be better, which will attract more consumers to buy products. History has repeatedly shown that excellent products can expand the overall market, and the overall output value of the automotive technology industry will definitely become greater. From this perspective, from a macro perspective, overall employment will not decrease, or even increase, but some people will be eliminated, and some practitioners in other fields will enter the automobile industry.

3. Let managers in the traditional automobile industry have a greater sense of crisis and accelerate change. Reconstruct strategy, reconstruct organization, reconstruct culture, reconstruct products, and reconstruct business model. In the process of change, those who are proactive will get more opportunities, while those who are conservative will be abandoned by the times.

According to the Chinese financial self-media "Alfa Commune", Apple's prototype car has been released; and according to the famous Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the Apple car will be released in 2023.

If Apple’s first car is not a self-driving car of L4 or above, its launch time will be before 2023; if Apple’s first car is a self-driving car of L4 or above, its launch time will be after 2023.

But no matter what, Apple's cars will definitely come back, and the global automobile industry will inevitably enter a magnificent era of change.

In such an era, the pain of fission is inevitable, but the opportunities will always outweigh the challenges. It mainly depends on how you choose.