February 21, 2025 • 46 mins
Bloomberg Chief Tech Correspondent Mark Gurman joins the show to talk about how Apple sank about $1 Billion a year into a car it never built - and why abandoning the plans to build the car was a massive mistake. Plus, the Porsche Macan EV and Nissan Frontier truck.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. I'm Matt Miller and
I'm Hannah Elliott, and this is hot Pursuit.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Today. We have a really special guest that I'm excited
to talk to. It Normally, Hannah, you know, I'm in
New York, Hannah's in Los Angeles, and usually Mark German
is there with you. That's right, so he was. He's
in New York for I don't know, meetings, networking, whatever.
But also Apple has introduced this new phone. I think
(00:40):
it's called the sixteen E. I don't really keep up
with the tech stuff too much unless I'm listening to Mark,
because he knows all of the inside information.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
It's incredible. Mark German the chief tech correspondent, I think
his title is. I mean, he basically just reports on
Apple and Meta, but he is a fount of knowledge.
It's kind of unbelievable. And he I actually ahead of
this conversation. Re read this story that he wrote for
Business Week back in March of last year about how
(01:13):
Apple spent a billion dollars into the car that it
never built. Fascinating.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, very cool. Are big take stories. It's a I
guess that's a brand that Bloomberg has so on the terminal,
you can type NI Big Take, but you can also
just search for the Bloomberg Big Take online. Yeah, I'm
so excited to have him on the program. I also
want to talk a little bit about a vehicle I'm driving.
(01:38):
You know, we get these press vehicles and usually they're
the most exciting and expensive and coolest vehicles out there,
so that when I get like a normal everyday car,
I don't really think much of it. But Nissan has
given me a Frontier. It's there. You know, they're smaller
(02:00):
truck in America. I guess the mid sized truck.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
I love a small truck, right.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Well, I wouldn't have thought anything of it, except for
the one they gave me was an Orange, and I'm
a sucker for Orange. They got your number, and then
so I started looking a little bit more closely. It's
the Pro four X version, which is like their version
of TRD right, and it has really cool wheels and
some sweet little accents in terms of design elements. And
(02:25):
so I get in and I start driving it, and
I remember like there's a lot of fun to be
had in driving sort of inexpensive Jeeps, which is essentially
what it is, right, it's the same feel as driving
a Wrangler or a Bronco. I know there's a bit
of a difference between those two, but it's like right
in the middle in terms of driveability. It's got a
(02:45):
three point eight liter V six. It's kind of you know,
it's not cutting edge tech in terms of the motor,
but it's well over three hundred horsepower. It's peppy enough,
and it's just like fun to drive one of these
vehicles and think that I wouldn't have to spend like
one hundred thousand dollars on it.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Is this is this more of a work truck, more
like a like a go out in the wilderness truck.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
You know, well this is the go out in the
wilderness version of it, right. I'm sure that most people
who get it are still going to be going to Starbucks, Like.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
You're not going to the job site necessarily.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Well you could, you could camp. And that's the other
thing I realized about this this vehicle, Like I love
the jeepish power train and handling and you know, the
suspension and for an urban jungle like the New York
metropolitan area, you kind of need that, right because everything
else gets beat to hell. But when I look at
(03:43):
these little trucks, you know, you see the Canyon or
the Colorado or you know, the Ranger, I always think
it's like an al Camino, Like it's just they they
just made a car and put an open bed in it,
but actually still a body on frame truck. And that
ruggedness I think is so cool for the I think
(04:03):
it starts at forty thousand dollars for the price tag,
you know, and today's day and age, that's not an
incredibly high price. And that is for this sort of
top of the line Apex Predator version of the Nissan Frontier.
So I just want to give a shout out to
those and say there are still affordable vehicles out there.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Yeah, and I have to say, I mean I'm looking
at a photo right now. It's not tiny. It's got
four doors. It's got a double cab, right, I'm assuming
the one.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah, it does.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
It's a true like a tiny. It's not tiny tiny.
I mean we're talking about it being a small truck.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
But right, I mean, you don't want too many people
of my height in it. You know, I'm six three,
I'm all legs, so I'm you know, the seats all
the way back for me to drive, and I'm still
I don't know if I'd want to spend too much
time in it.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
But got it.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
But yeah, for more regular sized or smaller humans, it's
a fantastic truck. And it is a truck like you know, I,
I guess I tend to be biased against things that
are smaller than an F one fifty and the fact
is so, for example, Ford has been offering me the
Ranger Raptor to try out for months and I've just
(05:15):
not taken him up on it because I'm like, well,
why I want the F one fifty Raptor. But this
has opened my eyes to a smaller truck experience and
now I'm really excited to try a few more of them.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
So yeah, I cool. I really, I mean I learned
to drive stick on a Ford truck. I do have
a soft spot for truck, so I'm all for it.
That's great.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
What have you been driving recently? I saw a little
jellybean sized or shaped in the medhicle. Yeah, yes, and
we're going to talk about it a little bit because
I know Mark German likes it as well. But to me,
the design is just.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
You know, the design isn't really. I mean, we've seen
we've seen the Macon in the market for years now,
so the design itself isn't new.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I loved the previous look of the Macan I thought
when I first saw it, I think it was in
twenty fifteen. It was right around the time they came
out the nine to eleven R and I was at
I guess, I guess an auto show, maybe Detroit and
or maybe La and I thought, cool, it's like a
lifted four door nine to eleven, Like that's awesome, But
(06:24):
this thing looks even more jelly beanie to me. It's
like the Tesla Model X and every other kind of
you still call them an suv. I guess you still
called an ash.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Yeah, yeah, I think you could. It's a compact suv,
you know what. I actually I wasn't bothered by the design.
I thought it looked cool. It's if you park it
next to EV's evsuvs from like Audi, for instance, it
certainly does look more dynamic. You know, it really looks,
(06:57):
especially the front where you have the stack of lights
on either side and just sort of a wall in
front of it. I don't want to say it looks
like the front of the earth's the Lamborghini suv. But
there it could be reminiscent.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
It's smaller, right, it's oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
It's smaller, but you know, I don't There's a little
spoiler on the back, so you can have a jellybean
with a spoiler, Matt if you want. You know, to me,
it wasn't so markedly different than the many other Macons
that are on the road. Obviously, this is the best
selling Portia vehicle in the US and the second best
in the world, So it to me, it wasn't radically
(07:37):
different than the mccon we've already seen.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
All Right, Well, I think, but I'm sure you don't
like it. Well, I just don't love the design. I'm
sure it drives great and great for an EV I
wonder does it have decent range? Yeah? It is charging quick.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
You know. The variant that I drove is the Macon
turbo Electric.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Okay, hang on a second, I already have a problem.
I already have a problem. Where's the turbo going.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Well, it's a marketing label at this point, and you
know it has been because we saw it in the
Taycan as well. So you know, turbo denotes the highest
variant at portion, it doesn't actually mean there's a turbo
charger under the hood. Silly.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I didn't know they were going to stick with that.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
I know they're pulling up.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I knew they did it with the Taykon, but I
thought enough people would have made fun of the executives.
You know, Oliver Bloomag goes to a dinner party and
someone's like, hey, dude, really the turbo Are you serious
that they would have changed their minds?
Speaker 1 (08:43):
But no, they're doubling down. They're doubling down. So the
taycn sorry, the Macan Turbot Electric is there are four variants.
It's the highest of the four. It starts at about
one hundred and five thousand dollars. To answer your question,
it has two hundred eight.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
And actually starts at one hundred and five thousand dollars.
It starts at the turbine.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
That's the higher. Yeah, the higher variant. I think the
the entry level starts at about seventy five thousand, So
there's a range there. There's a range there. The variant
that I drove got up to about one hundred and
thirty thousand dollars. That's adding things like twenty two inch
wheels with carbon fib carbon fiber arrow blades and things
(09:25):
like that. Some of the lesser variants have a lot
more range, about three hundred and ten miles or so.
This version that I drove has more power six hundred
and thirty horse power equivalent, but it has a little
bit less range two hundred and eighty eight miles of range.
I drove it up to Newcombs. I really flogged it.
I get, as we've discussed, I get major range anxiety.
(09:48):
I drove it for four days all over the city,
never actually got it under thirty percent of a charge left.
So to me, it was incredibly usable. If I had it,
I it would be the type of thing I'm just
charging it on the weekend at my house. Didn't seem
like a big deal because the charging network in LA
(10:08):
is not I don't even think it's great in LA.
You may fight me on that, but no, I have problems.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I haven't ever really spent any time in LA, and
so I also don't know what Newcombs is. What's Newcomb's.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Newcomb's Ranch is a used to be a restaurant. It's
up Angeleau's Crest. It's twenty six miles up highway to
up Angeleau's Crest, which is the highway through the mountains
leaving Los Angeles. It take You can go up there
to like Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear, and you can
get into some snow. Even Newcomb's Ranch is used to
(10:42):
be a restaurant. It's been abandoned for years. It's it's
been for sale for years, and I remember I actually
had Thanksgiving Thanksgiving meal there once. It's really nice. It's
basically a destination now for people to just drive up
to Newcomb's because it's a great drive and it's there's
a big parking lot there can park up and talk
with your car buddies. But you know, everyone has this
(11:06):
dream about new Comes. You know, I want to buy
it and get the restaurant back working. And the problem
with new Comes is there's one road in and one
road out, and that road is subject to rock slides
and mud slides and lots of snow, and that road
is often closed arbitrarily by the powers that be. So
if you're trying to get supplies and staff to your
(11:29):
restaurant up the road twenty six miles, it's difficult and unpredictable.
So in my opinion that's the real challenge of newcomes.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
But well, it looks cool, and I hope you know
how lucky you are living in a place like that.
All right, let's get to our interview with Mark German,
because it's super fascinating and I think connected to a
lot of these topics. Yeah, and then we'll touch base again.
I'm pretty excited to talk to you because I had
you on my TV show. You were saying some pretty
(11:58):
interesting stuff about Apple that you know, everyone knows that
they worked on a car and then canceled it. But
you said you've actually seen I guess a prototype, and
you think canceling it was a horrible strategic decision. Tell
us about it.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Yeah, I think over the long term, canceling work on
the self driving car was a terrible strategic decision for Apple.
Everything I saw pointed to an innovative sort of living
room on wheels, a innovative autonomous experience on the road,
so much more than a car, right, something where you
can lay back and chill and FaceTime and watch TV.
(12:35):
They had features at this time during development where you
could hear the outdoors through special microphones and speakers in
the car to make you feel like you were outdoors.
They had a window list designed. The idea was you
could just plug in where you're going and it would
take you there, all sorts of different safety mechanisms. They
(12:56):
even had this idea with no steering wheel, you could
use your iPhone app as a control roller for the car.
And there was even a physical controller, almost like a
PlayStation or Xbox controller where you can take over. There
was a call button into an Apple command center where
they had rooms with steering wheels and they could take
over manually to drive the car for you. So all
sorts of just pretty amazing technology and designs that they
(13:18):
worked on. The design looked absolutely phenomenal. It was like
a blend of a zoos and a canoe and a
BMW I three, but quite a bit bigger. It could
fit four to six people basically lounging right a moving
autonomous lounge on wheels, and I think it would have
been remarkable and totally upended the industry. But Apple was
(13:39):
not getting where it needed to get fast enough to
an autonomous first environment, and by the time they realized
they needed to pull the plug on full autonomy, they
had invested so much money billions tens of billions, and
it was too much, and they needed to start investing
that money elsewhere into generative AI for phones and tablets
and computers and the like. But I think over the
long term strategic mistake. At some point, I think they're
(14:02):
gonna need to come back to it. But you spent
ten years building up this car division, hiring all the
car people, then you fired them all. You can't really
reboot it that easily. It's gonna have to take probably
a new CEO, new management team, and probably a decade
in change in between. But I think an Apple car
would have been revolutionary. And once Apple comes to a market,
not only do they vanquish the market, but it starts
(14:24):
heightening the competition and trying to get everyone else to
build better products as well. So I think it would
have been a great thing for the industry. And as
someone who's into cars and into technology, I'm pretty disappointed.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Mark. I'm so curious about this, And I reread your
Big Take story that you wrote about this in March
of last year, and I really recommend our listeners to
go read it. Will include the link on the podcast.
And I'm just curious on a philosophical level, how you
really see this failed effort, because it seemed to me
(14:58):
like a combination of perhap apps arrogance. There was one
point where you said, you know, Apple kind of thought
they were going to come in and vanquish. They were
going to come in as like the latest you know,
entry into a long established industry and vanquish everyone else.
So there's that element, but also there's an element that
cars are really hard to make. It's like I say
it all the time, it's a simple thing, but you know,
(15:20):
we've seen countless people think, hey, boys, let's go build
a car. Like like you say in your piece, it
seems like a good idea, and everyone gets excited and
then you know, a year and a billion dollars later,
you realize it's a really hard thing to do. So
I'm curious, you know how much of this failure was
due to arrogance, Was due to the fact that this
(15:41):
is just a very hard thing, or should they have
not gone for full level five autonomous driving and maybe
set a goal a little bit more attainable. What's your thought, Hannah?
Speaker 3 (15:52):
It was the arrogance to think that they could literally
reinvent the wheel by going full autonomy at this state
with the current requirements of the technology. It was the
hubrist to believe that Apple could do anything it sets
its mind to. But no, this is a problem that
isn't solvable right now at a level of quality, safety,
(16:14):
and fit and finish that a company as big as
Apple would require, right, think of all the safety concerns
with full autonomy. So that hubris is what really destroyed
the project. From day one. They were unwilling to move
off of that standpoint. You know, there were some people
on Apple's management team that said, why don't we just
release a better Tesla. Why don't we bring something that
(16:35):
looks like the coolest car on the road, has amazing
battery electronics and a manufacturing process, has tight integration with
the Apple ecosystem, has the best car interior you've ever seen,
has the best infotainment system you've ever seen. We can
put limited autonomy features like Tesla did several years ago.
(16:56):
Over time, maybe upgrade them. Why not just take Keesla
Tesla head on. Other people are like, well, we're Apple,
we have to do things completely different. We invented the iPhone, right,
and I think the arrogance in that company because of
the success of the iPhone for the last two decades
led them down the wrong path. Apple can't do anything
(17:17):
it sets its mind to, very clearly. I think if
Apple released a true Tesla competitor, this conversation would be
completely different. I think a real competitor Tesla focusing on
design compatibility with the Apple ecosystem, infotainment, limited autonomy features
that could get better over time, I think it would
have been a killer product, and they should quite frankly,
(17:38):
be pretty upset with themselves that they allowed this project
to go in the entirely wrong direction from the very beginning.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Would they be partnered up with someone I remember reports that,
for example, they could work with Kia. I also know
from talking to you about it that they have partnered
up in other areas like CarPlay too. I want to
get to in a little bit with Porsche, which is, like,
you know, top of the industry in terms of fit
(18:06):
and finish, design, build quality, that.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
So would they have partnered up with somebody else or
would they have tried to do it in house?
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Well, I think given Apple's ability to partner with manufacturing companies.
There's Magna that does car manufacturing. They're based in Canada,
there are manufacturers in Asia like fox Conn who are
working on EV platforms and such. I think they could
have partnered with them pretty easily. One failed partnership was
with Tesla, right Elon Musk. That Yeah, Elon Musk basically
(18:35):
offered up the company to Tim Cook almost a decade ago.
He said, no, this was when it was worth about
sixty billion on the market cap. Wouldn't have really cost
Apple much if you're incorporating stock and everything like that,
compared to what they've what they have on hand, or
what they had on hand at the time, So that
was a.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Big back then they had over one hundred and twenty billion.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Yeah, they had way more. I mean now they're trying
to get to cash neutral, but back then they had
several hundred billion dollars in cash, right upwards of two
hundred three hundred billion in cash. They could have easily
bought Tesla. They could have turned Tesla into the machine
it is today, even quicker than Elon Musk was able
to given all their partnerships and experience. So you know,
I think that was a huge mistake by Tim Cook
(19:15):
to not go down that Tesla path. I think there
were some fears of what Elon Musk would have done
to a larger Apple, which I don't think that's entirely unfounded,
but I think that the benefits of such a partnership
our an acquisition would have outweighed the risks in terms
of other partnerships. Yeah, they talked to Kia, they talked
to Ferrari, they talked to Volkswagen, they talked to Mercedes BMW.
(19:38):
In time and time again, they were not able to
reach any consensus about a true partnership who would do what.
They got pretty far down the road on a partnership
with one company, one of the big German automakers, and
they were really excited about how well the partnership was doing,
so they pulled the plug on it, thinking they don't
need them as a partner, we can go at Yes,
this was Mercedes, so they definitely had failures, leadership failure,
(20:00):
financial related failures all around. The former Apple CFO Luca Maistrie,
who came from the car business. He was a finance
executive at General Motors over in Europe. He pushed heavily
against the car project because he knew firsthand how bad
of a business it is in terms of the costs,
that go into it, But I think they were too
(20:20):
scared to do something rational, and they focused on pipe
dream levels of technology and essentially went nowhere.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
You know, I know that. I think it was last
year I drove in a Mercedes BINZ that had Level
three autonomous driving capability. I drove, I rode slash drove
in that in LA Do you happen to know of
that system? That Level three system was developed during the
time that Mercedes and Apple were in their talks to
(20:51):
potentially work together. Is this something that probably resulted from
that sort of partnership.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
I don't think so. I don't think so. In terms
of things that came out of the Apple Car project
that have hit the market at this point. The Apple
Vision pro started off within the Apple Car project. The
initial effort to build augmented reality and virtual reality products
at Apple wasn't a headset or glasses. It was actually
the windshield and dashboard in the Apple car. The idea was,
(21:21):
you are looking through this windshield in front of your car,
and there's a ton of widgets, your speedometer, everything in
an augmented reality fashion. That was too expensive to put
into the car, so they moved it into a headset
form factor, which obviously makes a ton more sense. The
other things is Apple's upcoming push into personal robotics. They're
working on some robotics devices. Don't forget. A self driven
(21:42):
car is essentially a robotics device. It's a robot on wheels,
and the same underlying autonomy and SLAM and three D
technologies to do a self driven car, the same tech
you would use in a robot that roams through your home,
And so that came out of that as well. And
then Apple's chip efforts they make these AI chips called
the neural Engine. The original engine was actually built to
process the AI for self driving autonomy on the car,
(22:04):
and now that's in every iPhone and iPad and Mac
that you buy today with the Apple in house processor.
So you know, not all is lost from that project
except a potentially new hundred billion dollar a year business
that they are in not desperate need of right now,
but will probably wish they had a.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Figure how long do you think it's going to be
until they try and reboot, until they realize they need to.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
I think it's going to be five to fifteen years
before they try to get back in the car space.
But eventually they're going to have to. I mean Steve
Jobs and other executives at Apple at the time twenty
years ago. We're talking about more than twenty years ago. Yeah,
we're talking about the desire to own the next stage
of technology after mobile. And you know, they have long
considered the car the ultimate mobile device. And so I
(22:49):
think what really gave them inspirations how much people loved
car Play, which I know we're going to talk about.
Car Play. They launched in twenty fourteen. It was originally
introduced in twenty thirteen as iOS in the car. The
concept is very simple. You plug your phone into the
car and it basically creates a new interface in your
interfertainment system. That is an Apple designed interface where you
(23:11):
can do your texting, your Siri, your calls, messages, all
sorts of stuff, the third party apps, and they have
some pretty big ambitions for that.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I think the Ferrari the FF was one of the
first cars available with car Play.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
We're seeing it at the Detroit Auto Show and I thought, wow,
it's so cool. Ferrari working closely with Apple.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
That's right. And Eddie q who's a senior vice president
Apple for Services one of steve jobs closest confidants, really
a disciple of his. He's on the Bord of Ferrari
and so he's doing a lot of those partnerships. Car
Play ya, right. It launched in the Ferrari first back
in twenty fourteen, so ten years ago, eleven years ago
at this point. But their real ambition is to go deeper.
(23:53):
So right now, car Play is very much tied to
the Apple interface, applications I message calls, FaceTime audio, third
party apps, we chat, third party mapping apps, Apple maps Serie,
of course. But Apple's grander ambition is this project code
named Ironheart, and that's CarPlay two. This was announced back
(24:18):
in twenty twenty two, so three years ago. The idea
revamping CarPlay so it can control not only your Apple Interface,
your Apple apps and services and functions there, but the
functions in your car as well. What if CarPlay can
expand to control in view, your gauges, your electric your speedometer,
(24:40):
everything you would normally get in your instrument cluster, control
your climate in your car, control your seats, control your radio,
so the whole car system operated by your iPhone. Right,
So they introduce this in twenty twenty two. The idea
was to put the Apple interface in all the displays
in your car. Right, there's tons of cars. Now you
(25:02):
have a big digital display and a lot of cars
replacing the old terrestrial instrument gages. Right, it's never launched.
They've still been promising this thing. A couple of years ago.
They said their two partners at first would be Portia
and as did Martin. Those two cars haven't launched yet
with the new car Play, so it's anat why not?
Speaker 1 (25:26):
What's the delay? What's the whole?
Speaker 3 (25:28):
So for one, car Play works so well the current
iteration and is in so many cars. Everyone uses it
and loves it because it's so easy. You plug it
in seamless, Yes, you plug it in. It's seamless. It
works why Because it's a standardized Apple interface. You're getting
the same interface everywhere you go. The idea with car
Play too is that every car would have its own
(25:51):
bespoke interface, So the iPhone will be loaded up with
a different interface for every car. Ferrari would have its
own UI, Asden would have its own UI range over
it's on Ui Riva and its own UI. You name it. Right,
that's a lot of work. There are so many car
models on the road. Right, every car manufacturer wants to
(26:12):
have a look just for it, and they need to
sit down with Apple to create a look just for it.
Because it's so tightly and deeply integrated into the deep
systems within the car, right, that requires a lot of
engineering time as well. It's not plug and play like
the CarPlay we know today. So from a user interface
design standpoint, you have a big blockade there. From an
(26:32):
engineering and car component standpoint, you have a big blockade there.
But I guess the biggest thing is that in this era,
companies simply don't trust Apple, and they shouldn't. They saw
Apple come in there and destroy the smartphone industry, the
music industry, basically every industry it is entered smart watches.
They don't want Apple to come in, steal their customer
(26:54):
and destroy their relationship with the people who own their cars.
There is massive risk of BA basically handing over the
keys right to your car business to Apple.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
There's data concerns too, right.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
There's probably data concerns as well, But I think the
bigger concern is that Apple comes in builds a new
relationship with your customer, not a car play interface taking
over your whole car, and then one day they come
back decide they want to build a car.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
I've loved using car play too for all these years.
I want the whole into and Apple experience. CarPlay is basically, yeah,
it's a trophan ur. It's basically an advertisement for Apple's
eventual car. And so if I'm a car manufacturer, why
would I want to give up my customer to Apple.
Why don't I go and try to build the best
operating system and services I can? And that's what we've
(27:46):
seen from GM.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yep, exactly right. I mean, I mean, you know, for
so long, CarPlay had already dominated, it had become table stakes,
like if you make a luxury car, it has to
have CarPlay in it. But I've noticed recently, first of all,
if I get into a car that doesn't have wireless
car play, like ironically an Aston Martin or the new
portsche Carearite didn't have it, and it's just like something's missing.
(28:13):
But I recently got into a gmccra EV and I
noticed there is no car play at all because they're
trying to get away from it. They're trying to sort
of wean themselves off of the consumer addiction to this
Apple iOS.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Now, I don't believe what GM is doing is smart.
I think that they should allow car Play the OG
version of car Play, the original plug and play version.
I don't see the issue with that. Like you said,
that's table stakes for when consumers are buying a new
vehicle today. I agree that they should never in their
(28:47):
right mind adopt car Play too, because that's when you're
really handing the keys over of your customer to the
most powerful company in the world. There's no need to
do that, and as tightly integrated as CarPlay could potentially be,
I think there's a universe in which car makers can
make an even more bespoke interface for their customers. Right,
So I agree you don't want to support car Play two.
(29:10):
I'm with you. You don't want to support car Play one.
I think that is a mistake, and customers are telling
GM that, So we'll see what happens. You have to
build a better mousetrap if you're going to block what's
really known as the best one.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Mark. What is the sense at Apple of any customer
resistance to a car that is just completely screens with
no buttons and knobs? And I ask, because you know
when there are consumer feedback surveys, A lot of the
most annoying things that people would say is I don't
want to have to go through levels in an interface
(29:50):
in order to like adjust my seat or put my
wind down, just these simple tasks that a single button
would accomplish far simpler, Like Apple, of course, would just
go all pure screen all the time. Is there a
conversation there?
Speaker 3 (30:05):
There would be a lot of screens. But I think
in some cases Apple has realized where buttons are important. Right,
It's funny they've added more buttons to the iPhone in
the last three years. They've added two physical buttons to
the iPhone. For the previous fifteen years of the iPhone history,
they've never added a button. Now they have your action button.
Now you have your camera button, the camera control interface
(30:26):
on the side of the phone.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
So is that because people are saying I would like
to have that, I mean.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
Is that well on the camera control button, I'm not
sure anyone who asked for that. I think that I
like it, but pretty much no one else agrees with
me on that one.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
No, I like it.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Also, Okay, Matt likes it. But the action button, Okay, fine,
you replaced the mute swhich is something that could be
customizable for whatever. Nobody moves it off of the ringer
switch mat. Do you change your button?
Speaker 2 (30:52):
And on the watch also, I don't need it.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
There you go right, and so whatever. But I think
that shows that Apple realizes that there is a place
for tactile buttons, and I would yes. In a car, well,
first of all, the windows weren't gonna open anyways, so
let's let's scrap that one. You have the microphones to
feed in the outside audio instead. It's ridiculous Siri would
be the main control vehicle for the car anyways. But yeah,
(31:15):
in places where tactile switches, where those make sense, people
would would probably have those. Apple would want to implement it.
It's funny, you know, there are so many cars now
that have a touchcreen display for the AC stuff. I
don't like that. I would rather the physical switches for that.
In Apple's case, you would probably have it all touchscreens.
But that's neither here nor there. Because whatever this next
(31:35):
car project from Apple, it's hopefully going to come in
a time when Siri actually works properly and we'll be
able to really have finite control over the over the
overall system now. And it's to your point earlier about
people at Apple how they felt about this. I think
one of the big arguments inside Apple is that the
people making the decisions are people who love driving their
(31:58):
cars and getting behind the wheel. You know, Apple has
this ethos.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I'm surprised to hear that at tech company.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Yeah, huge mistake to let your dated philosophies in your
own personal hobbies get in the middle of Apple's product pipeline.
I don't agree with that. The future is clearly autonomous.
You love driving behind the wheel, You can continue driving
behind the wheel, but there should be vehicles for everyone.
You can drive your Porsche or FERRAI arrasted Martin, but
(32:26):
also have the autonomous cars, just like on smart watches. Right,
there's plenty of Apple executives who are big Rolex Potect
Philly cardierap fans. Whatever. You have those for your your
wedding nights or you're going out nice, but you've got
your Apple watch for your nine to five, right, And
so I think that, you know, maybe it wasn't such
a big dynamic there, but definitely people at Apple love
(32:47):
driving their cars, and so it felt like, why would
we want to change the industry when we kind of
love how it works. We love our cars, right.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
I'm curious to know what cars you love because you
are so steeped in the tech industry and you also
are a fan of vehicles. So are there anything any
cars out there that you think are particularly interesting? I mean,
obviously we all love a Porscha nine to eleven, and
(33:14):
we all would love a Ferrari. But is there anything
that you think is fascinating considering both of the worlds
that you stand in.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
I'm an EV guy, maybe that's not surprising, and I'm
not an EV guy for the energy or climate benefits.
I mean, those are nice, but I love the acceleration
of EV's I think it's just amazing. I'm a tech
I'm a techie, so I like the battery architecture. I
like being able to charge at home. I like not
(33:41):
being able to fill up with the guts. I like
that it's super quiet. So I like those technical focused benefits.
I'm a huge fan of the of the Porsche Taken.
I'm a big fan of the new macn EV from Porsche.
There you go, and I have a fantasy for an
(34:01):
as did Martin, more of a Lamborghini guy than a
Ferrari guy. Yeah, so you know some of those Italian cars.
Ask me about Tesla, right, Like, I gotta tell you so.
I had a Tesla Model Why. I had it on
a three year lease. Not getting another one of those,
(34:22):
I mean the new one. I was just not a
fan of the of the fit and finish. My driver's
seat fell apart, we had issues with the doors, the
display hinge got loose. It's just not a well manufactured product.
And the new Model three my wife has. She she
doesn't drive it much, but she likes it a lot.
(34:43):
The quality seems quite a bit better on the new
Model three versus the old model threes and the Model
Why So. Maybe they'll get there, but I'm just not
a fan of the Tesla product at this point.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Mark, I have one more question for you, if we
have time, just in terms, I would want to hear
about the competition that Apple would or is facing as
it considers or not coming out with this car. Play too,
but also the car itself, especially as it relates to China,
(35:16):
because obviously we don't have Chinese made vehicles here or
from Chinese companies, but it's yet, it's coming and you know,
the Chinese market has really proved devastating to traditional automakers,
especially in Europe this past year, just because they've figured
(35:36):
out a way to make grade evs. How does that
affect Apple?
Speaker 3 (35:40):
So let me break this down. It's actually quite simple.
All the Chinese guys they're going to come out with
their own cars. They're already doing it. These are basically phones, tablets,
computers on wheels. The autonomy part, I think is really
not important right now. You have to get there eventually,
but today it's not so important. The iPhone is struggling
in China. It's pretty much Apple's most important market for
(36:01):
the future, as are the surrounding countries right India, cross
Southeast Asia, et cetera. So all these Chinese companies are
going to get a lot of fans of their cars.
They're going to sell them cheap, They're going to get
them in the driveways of everyone. M Maybe they have
an iPhone today, but I can tell you they're going
to fall in love with those Chinese evs and they're
(36:22):
probably going to buy the phone and tech ecosystem that
corresponds to those evs one day.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Right, you want to be on all the same ecosystem
when I got the system. You know, a lot of
my really uh tech heavy friends or friends that understand
tech better than you know, the average layperson, they seem
to prefer you know, Windows or Android or LINEX or whatever.
But I feel like the Apple ecosystem, the iOS is
(36:50):
so intuitive and so easy to use for most people.
Is there anyone else who really can compete? Is shall
me making something that's that good or I don't know
other manufacturers, but Samsung, you know, is anyone else making
something that is that easy to use and that addictive
in terms of getting sucked into the ecosystem, in.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
Terms of sucking you into the ecosystem? Absolutely not. I mean,
Apple's the one that's able to pull you in from
their marketing, their features, how intuitive they are, the applications
and services they have available. But I can tell you
that a car could have the same effect, and that
is the risk for Apple. Any piece of the ecosystem
breaking open will open the floodgates, and so you need
to own every piece of the ecosystem. That's why even
(37:32):
though Apples smart speakers are some of the worst in
the industry, You've got to have them because if Amazon
Alexa is going to make it work, and Amazon one
day releases a tablet or a phone or a computer
or whatnot that's compelling enough. You're going to start losing
people if you're Apple. So owning every important aspect the
ecosystem is really important. And for now it's Apple CarPlay
(37:54):
in the automotive space. There'll be more partnerships there, but
at some point Apple's going to need it on the
road end to end experience.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
I knew he would be an awesome guest.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
I know, I want to have him back every month.
He fascinating.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
He just knows so much. And I love the way,
you know, he's so quick to compute and spit out
an answer. You know, it's like having your own chat
GPT in human form.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
That's a huge compliment. Yeah, I mean honestly, you know,
I know it's true. And I also love how he's
pretty straightforward, like he just says, yeah, Apple was arrogant.
There was a lot of hubris there. And no, I
don't think automakers should allow car play too to be
in the cars. That's definitely don't trust Apple. Like I
like how he's just very blunt about it.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Yes, I think he's one of these journalists who is
so smart and so good at his job. Yep, all right, cool,
what have you got coming up? Have you got anything? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Well, this week is Freeze Week in La so it's
been a lot of art things. But last night I
went to this very cool party at the Chateau where
an artist, yes, char Marmal, we're an artist, an artist
named Anthony James put an Aston Martin Vanquish in this
(39:12):
huge light box with like infinity mirrors and amazing lights,
and they craned the car and the car, the four
thousand pound car and the six thousand pound light box
over Sunset Boulevard and dropped it by the pool at
the Chateau. It was very cool, and Anthony's a friend.
I've known him for many years, so it was really
(39:34):
cool to see that. And then that car and the
art display is going to be auctioned off for charity
in a few months to help with La fire relief
and rebuilding. So that was really cool.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
That's awesome. So freeze, I thought you meant like it's cold,
but you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
FRII yeah, e it's the La Art Fair.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
It's a freeze is a broad horizontal band of sculpted
or painted decoration, usually on a wall or a ceiling.
I'm just looking it up.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Yeah, well that's yes, that is the definition of the word.
And also it's it's kind of like a mini art
basel in a way.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
So why did this guy choose the Aston Martin? Is
he a car guy or so?
Speaker 1 (40:18):
First of all, he's British, so he's got a sensitivity
for British automakers. But Anthony has owned tons of interesting
cars for years. When I first met him, he had
an eighty one Rolls Royce Corniche that he was driving around.
He's got a five or six Alpha Romeos at the
moment he's got I'm not gonna blow him up completely,
(40:41):
but he's owned Italian cars from other Italian brands. He
is actually a legitimate car guy, and so, you know,
I think this is just one of his things. He's
done a lot of this sort of endless infinity light
box thing. He's got a big sculpture at the pendry.
(41:02):
You might have seen it in sculptures. He just had
a big one and aspen installed, so they're everywhere. And
he actually when I first met him, he had put
a crashed Ferrari his own crashed Ferrari in a box,
a light box with some birch.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
He crashed it.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
It's unclear that I'm going to I'm going to plead
the fifth on that it may have might have, it
was damaged. I'm just gonna say the car was damaged.
And he put that in the It's very cool. You
can google it. So he's got a long history of
affinity for cars and.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
We should have him on the show.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
I'm going to get him on the show. I actually
mentioned it to him last night and he said he'd
be happy to come on. So we just got to
pick a date and he can tell us himself about
his love for cars.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
All right, that sounds very cool.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Yeah, it was great.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
I am off to Austin, first of twin trips to Austin. Yeah.
So I'm going to go down there and ride motorcycles
with the CEO of Well, actually I'm going to ride
the new Harley Davidson lineup and I was supposed to
go with the CEO of Harley Davis and Yolkin Sights,
(42:13):
but it's unclear now if Yolk is gonna go. They said,
you know what, he might he might not be coming.
Would you still be interested in riding our full lineup
if he doesn't join up, And I said, one hundred
percent absolutely yes, I still want I mean, the main
thing I want to do is ride the bikes, right,
But of course I would have loved to ask him
(42:34):
a million questions about you know, Harley stock has been
down and their sales have been down, and I want
to see them do well. I'm not I'm not I'm
not one hundred percent clear on why he can't make it,
but you know that Harley is being talked about in
terms of reciprocal tariffs. Now, last time Trump put on tariffs,
then Europe responded by putting big tariffs on Harley and
(42:57):
Levi's and Jack Daniels. And to me, this would be
a point of pride, right, that's you're one of the
most American products in the whole world, and you know
that's why they're doing that. And of course it hurts
more to people in Europe because they want to buy
that American product. In any case, I don't know exactly why,
(43:20):
and I hope still to talk to him, but I
also I don't know how this squares with my journal's integrity,
but I root for this company to come back right
as I want it to be an American success story.
I want the manufacturing business to grow. I want the
workers to have better, more solid, high paying jobs. Like
(43:43):
to me, we should all be rooting for Harley Davidson
to make a comeback.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
You know what that makes me think? To me, the
biggest fans also have the right to be the biggest critics.
And you criticize and critique because you actually do careen
and it you know, you want it to do well,
you want it to do better than it is. And
you see that it can you know, and you're you're
(44:08):
pain that it's not. So I get that.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
By the way, this is a company where it's really
easy to criticize, right because they they're selling basically nostalgia.
They're selling you like a nineteen, I don't know, sixties
or seventies ideal of this. You know, Born to Ride,
you know, easy rider. The guys coming back from World
War Two and this is you know, how they get
(44:32):
their freedom. And but they've got to do it in
a modern way, a more fuel efficient way. They've got
to put better, put out better horsepower numbers. You know,
everybody wants an engine that's you know, technologically advanced, but
I also still want this two liter lump. So I
feel like they're threading a needle in a really successful way.
(44:54):
And yeah, I just uh, I'm just I'm just pretty
thrilled to be able to test the products.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
That's great. I you know, I had a thought and
this is not directed at Harley Davidson at all, but
I also think it's possible for a company to have
a shelf life, you know, and this is again not
directed at any specific company, but not all companies are
going to exist forever and last forever, and if they
(45:24):
fail to adapt and evolve, they've got a shelf life.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Yeah right, Yeah, for sure. And I mean you're seeing,
but you're seeing competitors come into this market. Obviously, Indian
came back years ago and has had varying degrees of success.
Ducati has tried to put up a fight against the
American cruisers with its xdavel and I don't know how
much success they've they've had with that. In general, the
(45:51):
motorcycle market is just a tough slog right now, and
has been since the Great Financial Crisis. I don't know
what's going to turn that around, but maybe I can
be part of it.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
Yeah, yes, I still would love to. Let's get some
electric vespas going. I'm being really come on.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
I'm sure. I mean they are out there. The question
is right now, they're not really cost efficient the world.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
Do you think the world would be a better place
if everybody rode a motorcycle?
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Yes, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
I do agree with that as well.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Yeah, because you're not in that cage. You're not like
watching a movie. You're part of the movie. You're you're
in the scene.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
People would drive very differently. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
All right, Well, it's been great talking to you today.
Thank you so much for joining us, so much fun.
All right, I'm Matt Miller
Speaker 1 (46:45):
And I'm Hannah Elliott, and this is Bloomberg.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. I'm Matt Miller and
I'm Hannah Elliott, and this is hot Pursuit.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Today. We have a really special guest that I'm excited
to talk to. It Normally, Hannah, you know, I'm in
New York, Hannah's in Los Angeles, and usually Mark German
is there with you. That's right, so he was. He's
in New York for I don't know, meetings, networking, whatever.
But also Apple has introduced this new phone. I think
(00:40):
it's called the sixteen E. I don't really keep up
with the tech stuff too much unless I'm listening to Mark,
because he knows all of the inside information.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
It's incredible. Mark German the chief tech correspondent, I think
his title is. I mean, he basically just reports on
Apple and Meta, but he is a fount of knowledge.
It's kind of unbelievable. And he I actually ahead of
this conversation. Re read this story that he wrote for
Business Week back in March of last year about how
(01:13):
Apple spent a billion dollars into the car that it
never built. Fascinating.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, very cool. Are big take stories. It's a I
guess that's a brand that Bloomberg has so on the terminal,
you can type NI Big Take, but you can also
just search for the Bloomberg Big Take online. Yeah, I'm
so excited to have him on the program. I also
want to talk a little bit about a vehicle I'm driving.
(01:38):
You know, we get these press vehicles and usually they're
the most exciting and expensive and coolest vehicles out there,
so that when I get like a normal everyday car,
I don't really think much of it. But Nissan has
given me a Frontier. It's there. You know, they're smaller
(02:00):
truck in America. I guess the mid sized truck.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
I love a small truck, right.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Well, I wouldn't have thought anything of it, except for
the one they gave me was an Orange, and I'm
a sucker for Orange. They got your number, and then
so I started looking a little bit more closely. It's
the Pro four X version, which is like their version
of TRD right, and it has really cool wheels and
some sweet little accents in terms of design elements. And
(02:25):
so I get in and I start driving it, and
I remember like there's a lot of fun to be
had in driving sort of inexpensive Jeeps, which is essentially
what it is, right, it's the same feel as driving
a Wrangler or a Bronco. I know there's a bit
of a difference between those two, but it's like right
in the middle in terms of driveability. It's got a
(02:45):
three point eight liter V six. It's kind of you know,
it's not cutting edge tech in terms of the motor,
but it's well over three hundred horsepower. It's peppy enough,
and it's just like fun to drive one of these
vehicles and think that I wouldn't have to spend like
one hundred thousand dollars on it.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Is this is this more of a work truck, more
like a like a go out in the wilderness truck.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
You know, well this is the go out in the
wilderness version of it, right. I'm sure that most people
who get it are still going to be going to Starbucks, Like.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
You're not going to the job site necessarily.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Well you could, you could camp. And that's the other
thing I realized about this this vehicle, Like I love
the jeepish power train and handling and you know, the
suspension and for an urban jungle like the New York
metropolitan area, you kind of need that, right because everything
else gets beat to hell. But when I look at
(03:43):
these little trucks, you know, you see the Canyon or
the Colorado or you know, the Ranger, I always think
it's like an al Camino, Like it's just they they
just made a car and put an open bed in it,
but actually still a body on frame truck. And that
ruggedness I think is so cool for the I think
(04:03):
it starts at forty thousand dollars for the price tag,
you know, and today's day and age, that's not an
incredibly high price. And that is for this sort of
top of the line Apex Predator version of the Nissan Frontier.
So I just want to give a shout out to
those and say there are still affordable vehicles out there.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Yeah, and I have to say, I mean I'm looking
at a photo right now. It's not tiny. It's got
four doors. It's got a double cab, right, I'm assuming
the one.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah, it does.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
It's a true like a tiny. It's not tiny tiny.
I mean we're talking about it being a small truck.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
But right, I mean, you don't want too many people
of my height in it. You know, I'm six three,
I'm all legs, so I'm you know, the seats all
the way back for me to drive, and I'm still
I don't know if I'd want to spend too much
time in it.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
But got it.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
But yeah, for more regular sized or smaller humans, it's
a fantastic truck. And it is a truck like you know, I,
I guess I tend to be biased against things that
are smaller than an F one fifty and the fact
is so, for example, Ford has been offering me the
Ranger Raptor to try out for months and I've just
(05:15):
not taken him up on it because I'm like, well,
why I want the F one fifty Raptor. But this
has opened my eyes to a smaller truck experience and
now I'm really excited to try a few more of them.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
So yeah, I cool. I really, I mean I learned
to drive stick on a Ford truck. I do have
a soft spot for truck, so I'm all for it.
That's great.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
What have you been driving recently? I saw a little
jellybean sized or shaped in the medhicle. Yeah, yes, and
we're going to talk about it a little bit because
I know Mark German likes it as well. But to me,
the design is just.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
You know, the design isn't really. I mean, we've seen
we've seen the Macon in the market for years now,
so the design itself isn't new.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I loved the previous look of the Macan I thought
when I first saw it, I think it was in
twenty fifteen. It was right around the time they came
out the nine to eleven R and I was at
I guess, I guess an auto show, maybe Detroit and
or maybe La and I thought, cool, it's like a
lifted four door nine to eleven, Like that's awesome, But
(06:24):
this thing looks even more jelly beanie to me. It's
like the Tesla Model X and every other kind of
you still call them an suv. I guess you still
called an ash.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Yeah, yeah, I think you could. It's a compact suv,
you know what. I actually I wasn't bothered by the design.
I thought it looked cool. It's if you park it
next to EV's evsuvs from like Audi, for instance, it
certainly does look more dynamic. You know, it really looks,
(06:57):
especially the front where you have the stack of lights
on either side and just sort of a wall in
front of it. I don't want to say it looks
like the front of the earth's the Lamborghini suv. But
there it could be reminiscent.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
It's smaller, right, it's oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
It's smaller, but you know, I don't There's a little
spoiler on the back, so you can have a jellybean
with a spoiler, Matt if you want. You know, to me,
it wasn't so markedly different than the many other Macons
that are on the road. Obviously, this is the best
selling Portia vehicle in the US and the second best
in the world, So it to me, it wasn't radically
(07:37):
different than the mccon we've already seen.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
All Right, Well, I think, but I'm sure you don't
like it. Well, I just don't love the design. I'm
sure it drives great and great for an EV I
wonder does it have decent range? Yeah? It is charging quick.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
You know. The variant that I drove is the Macon
turbo Electric.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Okay, hang on a second, I already have a problem.
I already have a problem. Where's the turbo going.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Well, it's a marketing label at this point, and you
know it has been because we saw it in the
Taycan as well. So you know, turbo denotes the highest
variant at portion, it doesn't actually mean there's a turbo
charger under the hood. Silly.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I didn't know they were going to stick with that.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
I know they're pulling up.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I knew they did it with the Taykon, but I
thought enough people would have made fun of the executives.
You know, Oliver Bloomag goes to a dinner party and
someone's like, hey, dude, really the turbo Are you serious
that they would have changed their minds?
Speaker 1 (08:43):
But no, they're doubling down. They're doubling down. So the
taycn sorry, the Macan Turbot Electric is there are four variants.
It's the highest of the four. It starts at about
one hundred and five thousand dollars. To answer your question,
it has two hundred eight.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
And actually starts at one hundred and five thousand dollars.
It starts at the turbine.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
That's the higher. Yeah, the higher variant. I think the
the entry level starts at about seventy five thousand, So
there's a range there. There's a range there. The variant
that I drove got up to about one hundred and
thirty thousand dollars. That's adding things like twenty two inch
wheels with carbon fib carbon fiber arrow blades and things
(09:25):
like that. Some of the lesser variants have a lot
more range, about three hundred and ten miles or so.
This version that I drove has more power six hundred
and thirty horse power equivalent, but it has a little
bit less range two hundred and eighty eight miles of range.
I drove it up to Newcombs. I really flogged it.
I get, as we've discussed, I get major range anxiety.
(09:48):
I drove it for four days all over the city,
never actually got it under thirty percent of a charge left.
So to me, it was incredibly usable. If I had it,
I it would be the type of thing I'm just
charging it on the weekend at my house. Didn't seem
like a big deal because the charging network in LA
(10:08):
is not I don't even think it's great in LA.
You may fight me on that, but no, I have problems.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I haven't ever really spent any time in LA, and
so I also don't know what Newcombs is. What's Newcomb's.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Newcomb's Ranch is a used to be a restaurant. It's
up Angeleau's Crest. It's twenty six miles up highway to
up Angeleau's Crest, which is the highway through the mountains
leaving Los Angeles. It take You can go up there
to like Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear, and you can
get into some snow. Even Newcomb's Ranch is used to
(10:42):
be a restaurant. It's been abandoned for years. It's it's
been for sale for years, and I remember I actually
had Thanksgiving Thanksgiving meal there once. It's really nice. It's
basically a destination now for people to just drive up
to Newcomb's because it's a great drive and it's there's
a big parking lot there can park up and talk
with your car buddies. But you know, everyone has this
(11:06):
dream about new Comes. You know, I want to buy
it and get the restaurant back working. And the problem
with new Comes is there's one road in and one
road out, and that road is subject to rock slides
and mud slides and lots of snow, and that road
is often closed arbitrarily by the powers that be. So
if you're trying to get supplies and staff to your
(11:29):
restaurant up the road twenty six miles, it's difficult and unpredictable.
So in my opinion that's the real challenge of newcomes.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
But well, it looks cool, and I hope you know
how lucky you are living in a place like that.
All right, let's get to our interview with Mark German,
because it's super fascinating and I think connected to a
lot of these topics. Yeah, and then we'll touch base again.
I'm pretty excited to talk to you because I had
you on my TV show. You were saying some pretty
(11:58):
interesting stuff about Apple that you know, everyone knows that
they worked on a car and then canceled it. But
you said you've actually seen I guess a prototype, and
you think canceling it was a horrible strategic decision. Tell
us about it.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Yeah, I think over the long term, canceling work on
the self driving car was a terrible strategic decision for Apple.
Everything I saw pointed to an innovative sort of living
room on wheels, a innovative autonomous experience on the road,
so much more than a car, right, something where you
can lay back and chill and FaceTime and watch TV.
(12:35):
They had features at this time during development where you
could hear the outdoors through special microphones and speakers in
the car to make you feel like you were outdoors.
They had a window list designed. The idea was you
could just plug in where you're going and it would
take you there, all sorts of different safety mechanisms. They
(12:56):
even had this idea with no steering wheel, you could
use your iPhone app as a control roller for the car.
And there was even a physical controller, almost like a
PlayStation or Xbox controller where you can take over. There
was a call button into an Apple command center where
they had rooms with steering wheels and they could take
over manually to drive the car for you. So all
sorts of just pretty amazing technology and designs that they
(13:18):
worked on. The design looked absolutely phenomenal. It was like
a blend of a zoos and a canoe and a
BMW I three, but quite a bit bigger. It could
fit four to six people basically lounging right a moving
autonomous lounge on wheels, and I think it would have
been remarkable and totally upended the industry. But Apple was
(13:39):
not getting where it needed to get fast enough to
an autonomous first environment, and by the time they realized
they needed to pull the plug on full autonomy, they
had invested so much money billions tens of billions, and
it was too much, and they needed to start investing
that money elsewhere into generative AI for phones and tablets
and computers and the like. But I think over the
long term strategic mistake. At some point, I think they're
(14:02):
gonna need to come back to it. But you spent
ten years building up this car division, hiring all the
car people, then you fired them all. You can't really
reboot it that easily. It's gonna have to take probably
a new CEO, new management team, and probably a decade
in change in between. But I think an Apple car
would have been revolutionary. And once Apple comes to a market,
not only do they vanquish the market, but it starts
(14:24):
heightening the competition and trying to get everyone else to
build better products as well. So I think it would
have been a great thing for the industry. And as
someone who's into cars and into technology, I'm pretty disappointed.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Mark. I'm so curious about this, And I reread your
Big Take story that you wrote about this in March
of last year, and I really recommend our listeners to
go read it. Will include the link on the podcast.
And I'm just curious on a philosophical level, how you
really see this failed effort, because it seemed to me
(14:58):
like a combination of perhap apps arrogance. There was one
point where you said, you know, Apple kind of thought
they were going to come in and vanquish. They were
going to come in as like the latest you know,
entry into a long established industry and vanquish everyone else.
So there's that element, but also there's an element that
cars are really hard to make. It's like I say
it all the time, it's a simple thing, but you know,
(15:20):
we've seen countless people think, hey, boys, let's go build
a car. Like like you say in your piece, it
seems like a good idea, and everyone gets excited and
then you know, a year and a billion dollars later,
you realize it's a really hard thing to do. So
I'm curious, you know how much of this failure was
due to arrogance, Was due to the fact that this
(15:41):
is just a very hard thing, or should they have
not gone for full level five autonomous driving and maybe
set a goal a little bit more attainable. What's your thought, Hannah?
Speaker 3 (15:52):
It was the arrogance to think that they could literally
reinvent the wheel by going full autonomy at this state
with the current requirements of the technology. It was the
hubrist to believe that Apple could do anything it sets
its mind to. But no, this is a problem that
isn't solvable right now at a level of quality, safety,
(16:14):
and fit and finish that a company as big as
Apple would require, right, think of all the safety concerns
with full autonomy. So that hubris is what really destroyed
the project. From day one. They were unwilling to move
off of that standpoint. You know, there were some people
on Apple's management team that said, why don't we just
release a better Tesla. Why don't we bring something that
(16:35):
looks like the coolest car on the road, has amazing
battery electronics and a manufacturing process, has tight integration with
the Apple ecosystem, has the best car interior you've ever seen,
has the best infotainment system you've ever seen. We can
put limited autonomy features like Tesla did several years ago.
(16:56):
Over time, maybe upgrade them. Why not just take Keesla
Tesla head on. Other people are like, well, we're Apple,
we have to do things completely different. We invented the iPhone, right,
and I think the arrogance in that company because of
the success of the iPhone for the last two decades
led them down the wrong path. Apple can't do anything
(17:17):
it sets its mind to, very clearly. I think if
Apple released a true Tesla competitor, this conversation would be
completely different. I think a real competitor Tesla focusing on
design compatibility with the Apple ecosystem, infotainment, limited autonomy features
that could get better over time, I think it would
have been a killer product, and they should quite frankly,
(17:38):
be pretty upset with themselves that they allowed this project
to go in the entirely wrong direction from the very beginning.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Would they be partnered up with someone I remember reports that,
for example, they could work with Kia. I also know
from talking to you about it that they have partnered
up in other areas like CarPlay too. I want to
get to in a little bit with Porsche, which is, like,
you know, top of the industry in terms of fit
(18:06):
and finish, design, build quality, that.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
So would they have partnered up with somebody else or
would they have tried to do it in house?
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Well, I think given Apple's ability to partner with manufacturing companies.
There's Magna that does car manufacturing. They're based in Canada,
there are manufacturers in Asia like fox Conn who are
working on EV platforms and such. I think they could
have partnered with them pretty easily. One failed partnership was
with Tesla, right Elon Musk. That Yeah, Elon Musk basically
(18:35):
offered up the company to Tim Cook almost a decade ago.
He said, no, this was when it was worth about
sixty billion on the market cap. Wouldn't have really cost
Apple much if you're incorporating stock and everything like that,
compared to what they've what they have on hand, or
what they had on hand at the time, So that
was a.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Big back then they had over one hundred and twenty billion.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Yeah, they had way more. I mean now they're trying
to get to cash neutral, but back then they had
several hundred billion dollars in cash, right upwards of two
hundred three hundred billion in cash. They could have easily
bought Tesla. They could have turned Tesla into the machine
it is today, even quicker than Elon Musk was able
to given all their partnerships and experience. So you know,
I think that was a huge mistake by Tim Cook
(19:15):
to not go down that Tesla path. I think there
were some fears of what Elon Musk would have done
to a larger Apple, which I don't think that's entirely unfounded,
but I think that the benefits of such a partnership
our an acquisition would have outweighed the risks in terms
of other partnerships. Yeah, they talked to Kia, they talked
to Ferrari, they talked to Volkswagen, they talked to Mercedes BMW.
(19:38):
In time and time again, they were not able to
reach any consensus about a true partnership who would do what.
They got pretty far down the road on a partnership
with one company, one of the big German automakers, and
they were really excited about how well the partnership was doing,
so they pulled the plug on it, thinking they don't
need them as a partner, we can go at Yes,
this was Mercedes, so they definitely had failures, leadership failure,
(20:00):
financial related failures all around. The former Apple CFO Luca Maistrie,
who came from the car business. He was a finance
executive at General Motors over in Europe. He pushed heavily
against the car project because he knew firsthand how bad
of a business it is in terms of the costs,
that go into it, But I think they were too
(20:20):
scared to do something rational, and they focused on pipe
dream levels of technology and essentially went nowhere.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
You know, I know that. I think it was last
year I drove in a Mercedes BINZ that had Level
three autonomous driving capability. I drove, I rode slash drove
in that in LA Do you happen to know of
that system? That Level three system was developed during the
time that Mercedes and Apple were in their talks to
(20:51):
potentially work together. Is this something that probably resulted from
that sort of partnership.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
I don't think so. I don't think so. In terms
of things that came out of the Apple Car project
that have hit the market at this point. The Apple
Vision pro started off within the Apple Car project. The
initial effort to build augmented reality and virtual reality products
at Apple wasn't a headset or glasses. It was actually
the windshield and dashboard in the Apple car. The idea was,
(21:21):
you are looking through this windshield in front of your car,
and there's a ton of widgets, your speedometer, everything in
an augmented reality fashion. That was too expensive to put
into the car, so they moved it into a headset
form factor, which obviously makes a ton more sense. The
other things is Apple's upcoming push into personal robotics. They're
working on some robotics devices. Don't forget. A self driven
(21:42):
car is essentially a robotics device. It's a robot on wheels,
and the same underlying autonomy and SLAM and three D
technologies to do a self driven car, the same tech
you would use in a robot that roams through your home,
And so that came out of that as well. And
then Apple's chip efforts they make these AI chips called
the neural Engine. The original engine was actually built to
process the AI for self driving autonomy on the car,
(22:04):
and now that's in every iPhone and iPad and Mac
that you buy today with the Apple in house processor.
So you know, not all is lost from that project
except a potentially new hundred billion dollar a year business
that they are in not desperate need of right now,
but will probably wish they had a.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Figure how long do you think it's going to be
until they try and reboot, until they realize they need to.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
I think it's going to be five to fifteen years
before they try to get back in the car space.
But eventually they're going to have to. I mean Steve
Jobs and other executives at Apple at the time twenty
years ago. We're talking about more than twenty years ago. Yeah,
we're talking about the desire to own the next stage
of technology after mobile. And you know, they have long
considered the car the ultimate mobile device. And so I
(22:49):
think what really gave them inspirations how much people loved
car Play, which I know we're going to talk about.
Car Play. They launched in twenty fourteen. It was originally
introduced in twenty thirteen as iOS in the car. The
concept is very simple. You plug your phone into the
car and it basically creates a new interface in your
interfertainment system. That is an Apple designed interface where you
(23:11):
can do your texting, your Siri, your calls, messages, all
sorts of stuff, the third party apps, and they have
some pretty big ambitions for that.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I think the Ferrari the FF was one of the
first cars available with car Play.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
We're seeing it at the Detroit Auto Show and I thought, wow,
it's so cool. Ferrari working closely with Apple.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
That's right. And Eddie q who's a senior vice president
Apple for Services one of steve jobs closest confidants, really
a disciple of his. He's on the Bord of Ferrari
and so he's doing a lot of those partnerships. Car
Play ya, right. It launched in the Ferrari first back
in twenty fourteen, so ten years ago, eleven years ago
at this point. But their real ambition is to go deeper.
(23:53):
So right now, car Play is very much tied to
the Apple interface, applications I message calls, FaceTime audio, third
party apps, we chat, third party mapping apps, Apple maps Serie,
of course. But Apple's grander ambition is this project code
named Ironheart, and that's CarPlay two. This was announced back
(24:18):
in twenty twenty two, so three years ago. The idea
revamping CarPlay so it can control not only your Apple Interface,
your Apple apps and services and functions there, but the
functions in your car as well. What if CarPlay can
expand to control in view, your gauges, your electric your speedometer,
(24:40):
everything you would normally get in your instrument cluster, control
your climate in your car, control your seats, control your radio,
so the whole car system operated by your iPhone. Right,
So they introduce this in twenty twenty two. The idea
was to put the Apple interface in all the displays
in your car. Right, there's tons of cars. Now you
(25:02):
have a big digital display and a lot of cars
replacing the old terrestrial instrument gages. Right, it's never launched.
They've still been promising this thing. A couple of years ago.
They said their two partners at first would be Portia
and as did Martin. Those two cars haven't launched yet
with the new car Play, so it's anat why not?
Speaker 1 (25:26):
What's the delay? What's the whole?
Speaker 3 (25:28):
So for one, car Play works so well the current
iteration and is in so many cars. Everyone uses it
and loves it because it's so easy. You plug it
in seamless, Yes, you plug it in. It's seamless. It
works why Because it's a standardized Apple interface. You're getting
the same interface everywhere you go. The idea with car
Play too is that every car would have its own
(25:51):
bespoke interface, So the iPhone will be loaded up with
a different interface for every car. Ferrari would have its
own UI, Asden would have its own UI range over
it's on Ui Riva and its own UI. You name it. Right,
that's a lot of work. There are so many car
models on the road. Right, every car manufacturer wants to
(26:12):
have a look just for it, and they need to
sit down with Apple to create a look just for it.
Because it's so tightly and deeply integrated into the deep
systems within the car, right, that requires a lot of
engineering time as well. It's not plug and play like
the CarPlay we know today. So from a user interface
design standpoint, you have a big blockade there. From an
(26:32):
engineering and car component standpoint, you have a big blockade there.
But I guess the biggest thing is that in this era,
companies simply don't trust Apple, and they shouldn't. They saw
Apple come in there and destroy the smartphone industry, the
music industry, basically every industry it is entered smart watches.
They don't want Apple to come in, steal their customer
(26:54):
and destroy their relationship with the people who own their cars.
There is massive risk of BA basically handing over the
keys right to your car business to Apple.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
There's data concerns too, right.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
There's probably data concerns as well, But I think the
bigger concern is that Apple comes in builds a new
relationship with your customer, not a car play interface taking
over your whole car, and then one day they come
back decide they want to build a car.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
I've loved using car play too for all these years.
I want the whole into and Apple experience. CarPlay is basically, yeah,
it's a trophan ur. It's basically an advertisement for Apple's
eventual car. And so if I'm a car manufacturer, why
would I want to give up my customer to Apple.
Why don't I go and try to build the best
operating system and services I can? And that's what we've
(27:46):
seen from GM.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yep, exactly right. I mean, I mean, you know, for
so long, CarPlay had already dominated, it had become table stakes,
like if you make a luxury car, it has to
have CarPlay in it. But I've noticed recently, first of all,
if I get into a car that doesn't have wireless
car play, like ironically an Aston Martin or the new
portsche Carearite didn't have it, and it's just like something's missing.
(28:13):
But I recently got into a gmccra EV and I
noticed there is no car play at all because they're
trying to get away from it. They're trying to sort
of wean themselves off of the consumer addiction to this
Apple iOS.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Now, I don't believe what GM is doing is smart.
I think that they should allow car Play the OG
version of car Play, the original plug and play version.
I don't see the issue with that. Like you said,
that's table stakes for when consumers are buying a new
vehicle today. I agree that they should never in their
(28:47):
right mind adopt car Play too, because that's when you're
really handing the keys over of your customer to the
most powerful company in the world. There's no need to
do that, and as tightly integrated as CarPlay could potentially be,
I think there's a universe in which car makers can
make an even more bespoke interface for their customers. Right,
So I agree you don't want to support car Play two.
(29:10):
I'm with you. You don't want to support car Play one.
I think that is a mistake, and customers are telling
GM that, So we'll see what happens. You have to
build a better mousetrap if you're going to block what's
really known as the best one.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Mark. What is the sense at Apple of any customer
resistance to a car that is just completely screens with
no buttons and knobs? And I ask, because you know
when there are consumer feedback surveys, A lot of the
most annoying things that people would say is I don't
want to have to go through levels in an interface
(29:50):
in order to like adjust my seat or put my
wind down, just these simple tasks that a single button
would accomplish far simpler, Like Apple, of course, would just
go all pure screen all the time. Is there a
conversation there?
Speaker 3 (30:05):
There would be a lot of screens. But I think
in some cases Apple has realized where buttons are important. Right,
It's funny they've added more buttons to the iPhone in
the last three years. They've added two physical buttons to
the iPhone. For the previous fifteen years of the iPhone history,
they've never added a button. Now they have your action button.
Now you have your camera button, the camera control interface
(30:26):
on the side of the phone.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
So is that because people are saying I would like
to have that, I mean.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
Is that well on the camera control button, I'm not
sure anyone who asked for that. I think that I
like it, but pretty much no one else agrees with
me on that one.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
No, I like it.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Also, Okay, Matt likes it. But the action button, Okay, fine,
you replaced the mute swhich is something that could be
customizable for whatever. Nobody moves it off of the ringer
switch mat. Do you change your button?
Speaker 2 (30:52):
And on the watch also, I don't need it.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
There you go right, and so whatever. But I think
that shows that Apple realizes that there is a place
for tactile buttons, and I would yes. In a car, well,
first of all, the windows weren't gonna open anyways, so
let's let's scrap that one. You have the microphones to
feed in the outside audio instead. It's ridiculous Siri would
be the main control vehicle for the car anyways. But yeah,
(31:15):
in places where tactile switches, where those make sense, people
would would probably have those. Apple would want to implement it.
It's funny, you know, there are so many cars now
that have a touchcreen display for the AC stuff. I
don't like that. I would rather the physical switches for that.
In Apple's case, you would probably have it all touchscreens.
But that's neither here nor there. Because whatever this next
(31:35):
car project from Apple, it's hopefully going to come in
a time when Siri actually works properly and we'll be
able to really have finite control over the over the
overall system now. And it's to your point earlier about
people at Apple how they felt about this. I think
one of the big arguments inside Apple is that the
people making the decisions are people who love driving their
(31:58):
cars and getting behind the wheel. You know, Apple has
this ethos.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I'm surprised to hear that at tech company.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Yeah, huge mistake to let your dated philosophies in your
own personal hobbies get in the middle of Apple's product pipeline.
I don't agree with that. The future is clearly autonomous.
You love driving behind the wheel, You can continue driving
behind the wheel, but there should be vehicles for everyone.
You can drive your Porsche or FERRAI arrasted Martin, but
(32:26):
also have the autonomous cars, just like on smart watches. Right,
there's plenty of Apple executives who are big Rolex Potect
Philly cardierap fans. Whatever. You have those for your your
wedding nights or you're going out nice, but you've got
your Apple watch for your nine to five, right, And
so I think that, you know, maybe it wasn't such
a big dynamic there, but definitely people at Apple love
(32:47):
driving their cars, and so it felt like, why would
we want to change the industry when we kind of
love how it works. We love our cars, right.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
I'm curious to know what cars you love because you
are so steeped in the tech industry and you also
are a fan of vehicles. So are there anything any
cars out there that you think are particularly interesting? I mean,
obviously we all love a Porscha nine to eleven, and
(33:14):
we all would love a Ferrari. But is there anything
that you think is fascinating considering both of the worlds
that you stand in.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
I'm an EV guy, maybe that's not surprising, and I'm
not an EV guy for the energy or climate benefits.
I mean, those are nice, but I love the acceleration
of EV's I think it's just amazing. I'm a tech
I'm a techie, so I like the battery architecture. I
like being able to charge at home. I like not
(33:41):
being able to fill up with the guts. I like
that it's super quiet. So I like those technical focused benefits.
I'm a huge fan of the of the Porsche Taken.
I'm a big fan of the new macn EV from Porsche.
There you go, and I have a fantasy for an
(34:01):
as did Martin, more of a Lamborghini guy than a
Ferrari guy. Yeah, so you know some of those Italian cars.
Ask me about Tesla, right, Like, I gotta tell you so.
I had a Tesla Model Why. I had it on
a three year lease. Not getting another one of those,
(34:22):
I mean the new one. I was just not a
fan of the of the fit and finish. My driver's
seat fell apart, we had issues with the doors, the
display hinge got loose. It's just not a well manufactured product.
And the new Model three my wife has. She she
doesn't drive it much, but she likes it a lot.
(34:43):
The quality seems quite a bit better on the new
Model three versus the old model threes and the Model
Why So. Maybe they'll get there, but I'm just not
a fan of the Tesla product at this point.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Mark, I have one more question for you, if we
have time, just in terms, I would want to hear
about the competition that Apple would or is facing as
it considers or not coming out with this car. Play too,
but also the car itself, especially as it relates to China,
(35:16):
because obviously we don't have Chinese made vehicles here or
from Chinese companies, but it's yet, it's coming and you know,
the Chinese market has really proved devastating to traditional automakers,
especially in Europe this past year, just because they've figured
(35:36):
out a way to make grade evs. How does that
affect Apple?
Speaker 3 (35:40):
So let me break this down. It's actually quite simple.
All the Chinese guys they're going to come out with
their own cars. They're already doing it. These are basically phones, tablets,
computers on wheels. The autonomy part, I think is really
not important right now. You have to get there eventually,
but today it's not so important. The iPhone is struggling
in China. It's pretty much Apple's most important market for
(36:01):
the future, as are the surrounding countries right India, cross
Southeast Asia, et cetera. So all these Chinese companies are
going to get a lot of fans of their cars.
They're going to sell them cheap, They're going to get
them in the driveways of everyone. M Maybe they have
an iPhone today, but I can tell you they're going
to fall in love with those Chinese evs and they're
(36:22):
probably going to buy the phone and tech ecosystem that
corresponds to those evs one day.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Right, you want to be on all the same ecosystem
when I got the system. You know, a lot of
my really uh tech heavy friends or friends that understand
tech better than you know, the average layperson, they seem
to prefer you know, Windows or Android or LINEX or whatever.
But I feel like the Apple ecosystem, the iOS is
(36:50):
so intuitive and so easy to use for most people.
Is there anyone else who really can compete? Is shall
me making something that's that good or I don't know
other manufacturers, but Samsung, you know, is anyone else making
something that is that easy to use and that addictive
in terms of getting sucked into the ecosystem, in.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
Terms of sucking you into the ecosystem? Absolutely not. I mean,
Apple's the one that's able to pull you in from
their marketing, their features, how intuitive they are, the applications
and services they have available. But I can tell you
that a car could have the same effect, and that
is the risk for Apple. Any piece of the ecosystem
breaking open will open the floodgates, and so you need
to own every piece of the ecosystem. That's why even
(37:32):
though Apples smart speakers are some of the worst in
the industry, You've got to have them because if Amazon
Alexa is going to make it work, and Amazon one
day releases a tablet or a phone or a computer
or whatnot that's compelling enough. You're going to start losing
people if you're Apple. So owning every important aspect the
ecosystem is really important. And for now it's Apple CarPlay
(37:54):
in the automotive space. There'll be more partnerships there, but
at some point Apple's going to need it on the
road end to end experience.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
I knew he would be an awesome guest.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
I know, I want to have him back every month.
He fascinating.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
He just knows so much. And I love the way,
you know, he's so quick to compute and spit out
an answer. You know, it's like having your own chat
GPT in human form.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
That's a huge compliment. Yeah, I mean honestly, you know,
I know it's true. And I also love how he's
pretty straightforward, like he just says, yeah, Apple was arrogant.
There was a lot of hubris there. And no, I
don't think automakers should allow car play too to be
in the cars. That's definitely don't trust Apple. Like I
like how he's just very blunt about it.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Yes, I think he's one of these journalists who is
so smart and so good at his job. Yep, all right, cool,
what have you got coming up? Have you got anything? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Well, this week is Freeze Week in La so it's
been a lot of art things. But last night I
went to this very cool party at the Chateau where
an artist, yes, char Marmal, we're an artist, an artist
named Anthony James put an Aston Martin Vanquish in this
(39:12):
huge light box with like infinity mirrors and amazing lights,
and they craned the car and the car, the four
thousand pound car and the six thousand pound light box
over Sunset Boulevard and dropped it by the pool at
the Chateau. It was very cool, and Anthony's a friend.
I've known him for many years, so it was really
(39:34):
cool to see that. And then that car and the
art display is going to be auctioned off for charity
in a few months to help with La fire relief
and rebuilding. So that was really cool.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
That's awesome. So freeze, I thought you meant like it's cold,
but you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
FRII yeah, e it's the La Art Fair.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
It's a freeze is a broad horizontal band of sculpted
or painted decoration, usually on a wall or a ceiling.
I'm just looking it up.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Yeah, well that's yes, that is the definition of the word.
And also it's it's kind of like a mini art
basel in a way.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
So why did this guy choose the Aston Martin? Is
he a car guy or so?
Speaker 1 (40:18):
First of all, he's British, so he's got a sensitivity
for British automakers. But Anthony has owned tons of interesting
cars for years. When I first met him, he had
an eighty one Rolls Royce Corniche that he was driving around.
He's got a five or six Alpha Romeos at the
moment he's got I'm not gonna blow him up completely,
(40:41):
but he's owned Italian cars from other Italian brands. He
is actually a legitimate car guy, and so, you know,
I think this is just one of his things. He's
done a lot of this sort of endless infinity light
box thing. He's got a big sculpture at the pendry.
(41:02):
You might have seen it in sculptures. He just had
a big one and aspen installed, so they're everywhere. And
he actually when I first met him, he had put
a crashed Ferrari his own crashed Ferrari in a box,
a light box with some birch.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
He crashed it.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
It's unclear that I'm going to I'm going to plead
the fifth on that it may have might have, it
was damaged. I'm just gonna say the car was damaged.
And he put that in the It's very cool. You
can google it. So he's got a long history of
affinity for cars and.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
We should have him on the show.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
I'm going to get him on the show. I actually
mentioned it to him last night and he said he'd
be happy to come on. So we just got to
pick a date and he can tell us himself about
his love for cars.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
All right, that sounds very cool.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Yeah, it was great.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
I am off to Austin, first of twin trips to Austin. Yeah.
So I'm going to go down there and ride motorcycles
with the CEO of Well, actually I'm going to ride
the new Harley Davidson lineup and I was supposed to
go with the CEO of Harley Davis and Yolkin Sights,
(42:13):
but it's unclear now if Yolk is gonna go. They said,
you know what, he might he might not be coming.
Would you still be interested in riding our full lineup
if he doesn't join up, And I said, one hundred
percent absolutely yes, I still want I mean, the main
thing I want to do is ride the bikes, right,
But of course I would have loved to ask him
(42:34):
a million questions about you know, Harley stock has been
down and their sales have been down, and I want
to see them do well. I'm not I'm not I'm
not one hundred percent clear on why he can't make it,
but you know that Harley is being talked about in
terms of reciprocal tariffs. Now, last time Trump put on tariffs,
then Europe responded by putting big tariffs on Harley and
(42:57):
Levi's and Jack Daniels. And to me, this would be
a point of pride, right, that's you're one of the
most American products in the whole world, and you know
that's why they're doing that. And of course it hurts
more to people in Europe because they want to buy
that American product. In any case, I don't know exactly why,
(43:20):
and I hope still to talk to him, but I
also I don't know how this squares with my journal's integrity,
but I root for this company to come back right
as I want it to be an American success story.
I want the manufacturing business to grow. I want the
workers to have better, more solid, high paying jobs. Like
(43:43):
to me, we should all be rooting for Harley Davidson
to make a comeback.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
You know what that makes me think? To me, the
biggest fans also have the right to be the biggest critics.
And you criticize and critique because you actually do careen
and it you know, you want it to do well,
you want it to do better than it is. And
you see that it can you know, and you're you're
(44:08):
pain that it's not. So I get that.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
By the way, this is a company where it's really
easy to criticize, right because they they're selling basically nostalgia.
They're selling you like a nineteen, I don't know, sixties
or seventies ideal of this. You know, Born to Ride,
you know, easy rider. The guys coming back from World
War Two and this is you know, how they get
(44:32):
their freedom. And but they've got to do it in
a modern way, a more fuel efficient way. They've got
to put better, put out better horsepower numbers. You know,
everybody wants an engine that's you know, technologically advanced, but
I also still want this two liter lump. So I
feel like they're threading a needle in a really successful way.
(44:54):
And yeah, I just uh, I'm just I'm just pretty
thrilled to be able to test the products.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
That's great. I you know, I had a thought and
this is not directed at Harley Davidson at all, but
I also think it's possible for a company to have
a shelf life, you know, and this is again not
directed at any specific company, but not all companies are
going to exist forever and last forever, and if they
(45:24):
fail to adapt and evolve, they've got a shelf life.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Yeah right, Yeah, for sure. And I mean you're seeing,
but you're seeing competitors come into this market. Obviously, Indian
came back years ago and has had varying degrees of success.
Ducati has tried to put up a fight against the
American cruisers with its xdavel and I don't know how
much success they've they've had with that. In general, the
(45:51):
motorcycle market is just a tough slog right now, and
has been since the Great Financial Crisis. I don't know
what's going to turn that around, but maybe I can
be part of it.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
Yeah, yes, I still would love to. Let's get some
electric vespas going. I'm being really come on.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
I'm sure. I mean they are out there. The question
is right now, they're not really cost efficient the world.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
Do you think the world would be a better place
if everybody rode a motorcycle?
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Yes, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
I do agree with that as well.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Yeah, because you're not in that cage. You're not like
watching a movie. You're part of the movie. You're you're
in the scene.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
People would drive very differently. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
All right, Well, it's been great talking to you today.
Thank you so much for joining us, so much fun.
All right, I'm Matt Miller
Speaker 1 (46:45):
And I'm Hannah Elliott, and this is Bloomberg.
Hosts And Creators
Hannah Elliott
Matt Miller
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