Perhaps annoyed by Tesla’s persistence in picking off its engineers, Apple is attempting to win over some of the electric car maker’s employees with signing bonuses of a quarter-million dollars and salary increases of up to sixty percent, Bloomberg revealed today.
Pick a color, any color! @teslamotors #tesla #teslamodelSTeslas parked at Apple’s Campus
A photo posted by Gody John (@gody) on Feb 7, 2014 at 12:26pm PST
In the past, Tesla has managed to poach a significant number of Apple’s designers and engineers for its own productsâ€"more than 150, according to Bloomberg. Some employees have pointed to Musk, who is often compared to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, as one of the key factors in their decision to jump ship. Perhaps that’s why so many seem to be jumping ship to work at Tesla?
But it seems Apple is ready to get back some of those workers. Musk says that Apple “tries very hard†to lure engineers back to Cupertino, but has had very limited luck so far.
Some may point to this as evidence that Apple wants to get into the car industry. Just a few days ago, Apple was reported to have leased several minivans that were spotted rolling through San Francisco and elsewhere with an array of cameras. While some individuals claimed that these were prototype self-driving cars, it seems more likely that Apple is working on a Street View-style mapping system.
A more logical conclusion might be that Apple simply wants to recruit talented engineers and designersâ€"like those at Teslaâ€"to work on its lineup of computers and mobile devices. After all, no one looks at Tesla’s poaching of a computer engineer and assumes that company is going to dive into the laptop market.
Tesla to allow iPhone to start Model S without key/fobs with v6.0Â update
![Tesla CEO Elon Musk and iPhone Engineer discuss battery technology [Video]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vI8EclyMHxnok5DHQs2GOyGBhXSdyGKNdeKHf-8pZfw8Fi43u0t2vxXLjO5F4XNpg8JHldZDbnDZ9qJ55BwdJ5TSg7hPthRrEw7eZbTF6bo3yAvbKiSbW6L79M=s0-d)
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and iPhone Engineer discuss battery technology [Video]
It’s not innovative to make electric cars, it’s been successfully done since the 1970’s. The battery technology isn’t innovative either, it’s basically just a giant laptop battery, but in a car. that’ pretty much the entire extant of the innovation here. They were the guys that thought “Hey, why don’t we make an electric car, but with giant laptop batteries instead of the regular ones?â€
Tesla is a single product, niche product company. They make electric sports cars for rich dudes. Period. It is practically the opposite of an innovative or exciting company.
The reason Apple employees are moving to Tesla, and the reason why it’s hard to get them back is basically just money. When you make a single, niche product for rich dudes, you have a license to print money. Everyone at Tesla is making money hand over fist, (because they make freaking electric sports cars for rich guys!).
Allow me to refute your entire post, sentence by sentence.
“It’s not innovative to make electric cars, it’s been successfully done since the 1970’s.â€
Isn’t that the whole point of Apple? It’s not like there weren’t any phones before Apple, and it’s not like there weren’t any smartphones before Apple: Apple just made a product that was much more exciting and innovative than any of their competitors. That’s exactly what Tesla’s doing.
“The battery technology isn’t innovative either…â€
Tell that to Nissan, Chevy, BMW, and ZAP. Matter of fact, why don’t you tell me what you think the killer feature of the iPhone is? Perhaps it was magically leaps and bounds better than anything else on the market?
“Tesla is a single product, niche product company.â€
Aha, but they’re TRYING to become a multi-varied, multiproduct company. Back in the 70’s, Apple didn’t have a giant product line of their own. They just had a single, niche product for hobbyists (don’t tell me the Apple I wasn’t niche, because the general public sure as heck didn’t know what to do with computers back then).
“They make electric sports cars for rich dudes.â€
Allow me to direct you to the 2010’s. Swedish House Mafia isn’t together anymore, Robin Williams and Nelson Mandela are sadly no longer with us, and Tesla DOESN’T MAKE SPORTS CARS. For heaven’s sake, if the Tesla Model S is a sports car, then I guess the Honda Civic serves the same purpose as a Mazda MX-5. (Hint: it doesn’t). Secondly, the price ceiling for cars that new Tesla owners are coming from is typically around $40,000. AKA not rich dudes. Perhaps financially stable dudes would be a better term.
“It is practically the opposite of an innovative or exciting company.â€
O rly? (Pardon the use of Internet vernacular, but when the shoe fits…) If Tesla is not an innovative company, please tell me what companies you think are innovative. Wait, wait, don’t tell me. Apple? I’d like to hear one thing about the iPhone that another phone can’t do better (Please note: I’m not disparaging Apple or saying that Apple isn’t innovative, I’m just trying to figure out what this guy’s trying to prove).
(This last paragraph is the really hilarious one)
“The reason Apple employees are moving to Tesla, and the reason why it’s hard to get them back is basically just money. When you make a single, niche product for rich dudes, you have a license to print money. Everyone at Tesla is making money hand over fist, (because they make freaking electric sports cars for rich guys!).â€
Let me show you a few statistics. We’re going to compare revenue and profits for each company during the fiscal year of 2013 using, by method of arbitrary choice, the website Marketwatch. Observe.
2013 | TSLA Annual Income (Revenue): $2.01B USD
2013 | TSLA Annual Gross Income (Profit): $456.26M USD
Now for Apple.
2013 | AAPL Annual Income (Revenue): $170.87 USD
2013 | AAPL Annual Gross Income (Profits): $63.63B USD
As you can see, Apple makes roughly 85 times the revenue and 140 times the profits that Tesla does. The very article you just presumably read revealed that Apple is offering Tesla engineers 60% salary increases plus gargantuan signing bonuses, which would imply pretty heavily that Apple’s the one with extra cash.
TL;DR: Gazoo Bee is full of hot air, and it would be very interesting for all of us if he could actually substantiate half of what he just said.
1) Name one other successful electric car company or fully electric car. There aren’t any others.
2) They actually have three models â€" the Roadster, the S, and the X. If my math is correct, that’s three products. And that doesn’t include all of their consulting services around powertrains, batteries, etc. for other car manufacturers.
3) They’re actually not sports cars â€" they’re sedans (four doors, five passengers). The company also isn’t making that much money. Complex accounting aside, Musk recently noted they won’t turn a real profit until 2020. I’m sure the employees are paid well, though nowhere near as well as Apple’s best engineers.
It’s obvious they want to work for Tesla because of the incredible vision and drive of Musk. Apple and Tesla are both phenomenal companies, each in their own right. That said, Apple made 18 billion dollars in profit last quarter. They clearly have cash to throw around whereas Tesla has nowhere near that much financial pull. For them it’s really about the CEO and where the company is going.
For the record, many companies have come out with electric cars as I have noted, since the 1970’s. All were successful in terms of engineering (it’s literally a trivial thing to make an electric car), albeit all those companies eventually failed financially. All those other electric cars were arguably *more* innovative than the Tesla, given that they laid all the groundwork for cars like Teslas.
All Tesla has done is target the rich southern Californian, and introduced their product at a time when the idea is “in the air.†The Tesla cars are luxury cars with sports car performance. In other words, custom made for little rich dudes who like to rev their motors and who can afford to pay the ridiculous prices.
I realize that Tesla is very, very, very, popular with male geeks, especially those who work in the tech business and can afford one, or those that visit sites like this. None of that changes the actual historical facts however.
BEVs have not build sold successfully before. They have been microniche cars produced by microniche companies or in microniche numbers by the legacy automakers.
Currently Nissan is selling the most electric cars globally. They sold a record 63k units. And they sold 5,000,000 gasoline and diesel cars.
Tesla is making a single product today. It sold ~33k cars last year. By the end of this year it will make a CUV. SUV form factory with the efficiency and driving dynamics of a car.
And by 2018 it will make a sedan starting at $35k.
Tesla innovation is not batteries. They buy those from Panasonic. Tesla innovation is software battery and motor management. They make electric motors without rare earth metals. Unlike Nissan and GM.
If everyone else could sell 33k electric sedans with an average selling price of $106k with 28% gross margins why don’t they?
Answer? Either they are stupid or they can’t. Or both.
You sir, are a complete dumb ass and this statement alone shows that you know nothing about technology
Gazoo, you said it yourself: “It’s not innovative to make electric carsâ€. Well, it wasn’t innovative to make an MP3 player back when the iPod was released. However, it was the capacity, interface, long-term vision and the overall walled garden of iOS that made it great. Mr. Musk is doing the same thing: he’s blown away others with the performance of his vehicles, and is creating a network of SuperCharger stations all while essentially open-sourcing his battery technology. What better way to make your technology ubiquitous and ensure the longevity of your product(s) and corporation? He’s bloody brilliant in the same way that Jobs was.
As a former Apple employee (1991-1993 .. the awful Pepsi years :-) I would choose Tesla over Apple any day of the week.
As far as exciting? I don’t know, Tesla only has one model currently on their web site and another that isn’t shipping yet. I actually would be worried about Tesla since other competitors are coming out with full electric cars and they have more dealerships, bigger advertising budget, and eventually Tesla might have a tougher time because they might get crushed.
It is a matter of taste.
I don’t think Tesla is worried about any other car company stealing it’s thunder.
Maybe time to start 9to5Musk?