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