In a note to clients — as noted by Markets Insider — UBS’ equity research team shared what they learned from speaking with tech analyst, Horace Dediu. The biggest takeaway: “transportation is Apple’s future.” This refers to “Project Titan,” the tech giant’s rumored “Apple Car” division.
“Project Titan is likely to be a transportation platform—not a car but the entire experience,” the UBS note said. “Jony Ive and Marc Newson are interested in car design, both exterior and interior.”
The research group said the experts it had spoken to thought car ownership will plummet with autonomous driving.
“Then who is going to own all these cars? It might be Apple, one plausible reason to keep a large cash balance,” the note said. “For now the company is building expertise in core sensor, driving, and mapping technologies.”
However, as the Sellers Research Group (that’s me) has said before, I don’t think that Apple will actually build its own automobiles, but will work with other manufactures to implement technologies such as enhanced CarPlay into their vehicles. Of course, Apple could start making its own vehicles.
However, that’s an awfully big and expensive undertaking, even for the world’s most influential, successful company. It could easily consume the company’s resources. What if, instead, Apple stung off a design business to help auto companies? And worked to build autonomous software rather than an entire vehicle?
