James Bond might approve but would a tie-up of Apple and Aston Martin make sense?
If it’s truly serious about cars, Apple should buy Aston Martin Holdings. This may sound wacky, but bear with me.
For the prestige British car maker, there’s clear mileage in the idea. Its owners are already planning an initial public offering and its chief executive wants a “big brother” partner to help him keep pace with autonomous vehicle projects at much better capitalised rivals. You don’t get any bigger or richer than Apple.
For Apple, the immediate question is why a maker of mass consumer products – as handsome as they are – would want to buy a luxury automaker that sells just 5,000 or so vehicles a year? But the tech giant was reported to have looked at supercar manufacturer McLaren Technology Group last year.
With Apple’s car project appearing rudderless since it was scaled back 18 months ago, Aston could be an eye-catching and relatively cheap way to get back in the game. Alphabet’s Waymo has 600 self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans in its fleet and has ordered thousands more. Apple has just 27 cars in California, and it’s unclear to what end.
To develop a self-driving car, you need vast data sets to train the system, data you get from fleets of cars roaming the streets.
And while top-end Aston Martins might not be the most obvious way to gather this informational gold – they’re often locked in garages or only driven at weekends – the British car maker has big plans to revive its sister brand, the Lagonda sedan.
The Rolls-Royce rival is designed to ferry the rich and powerful around and between cities, a task that might be perfect for a robo-chauffeur. Apple could use the brand as a beachhead to secure the data it needs from several thousand cars.
So why wouldn’t Apple team up with one of the auto giants instead? It’s because established car makers are understandably loathe to hand that kind of data to any Silicon Valley giant. They recognise the existential threat.
Besides, car makers with the cachet with which Apple would like to be associated (think BMW, Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz or Volkswagen’s Audi) all believe the autonomous systems they’re developing are vastly superior to Apple’s. VW’s boss has said as much. They’re almost certainly correct.
Aston, meanwhile, is almost the only luxury car maker that’s truly independent. Peer Ferrari enjoys profitability not far below the 20 per cent net margins to which Apple’s shareholders are accustomed. Aston Martin isn’t near that level yet – it only stopped making losses recently.
But there’s certainly value in James Bond’s favourite brand, and Apple’s manufacturing and technical nous would help.
With less than £1 billion (Dh5.11bn) in yearly revenue, Aston’s hope for an IPO value of up to £5bn looks a little racy. While Apple wouldn’t want to overpay (it is notoriously careful on dealmaking), it has $285bn of cash to play with. A deal would be a much smaller gamble than for, say, Tesla, which Apple is believed to have considered a few years back.
It can cost as much as $3bn to build a new car platform from scratch.
Britain’s Dyson has pledged about $2.8bn so far to build a new electric car. Admittedly, Aston is more renowned for its looks than its engineering – it still depends on Mercedes and Ford for key technology, not least its engines. But it has skilled craftsmen with knowledge of subjects of which Apple knows nothing, such as braking and suspension. As a brand and a frame around which to build an ambitious car project, it’s an intriguing prospect.
A new Lagonda concept was unveiled in Geneva. Its prospective production in 2021 or 2022 would be in line with when other basic autonomous cars hit the market. Until then, introducing semi-autonomous features to existing models would let Apple start gathering data.
Crucially, because Aston is never likely to sell many more than 15,000 cars a year, Apple would still be able to sell its autonomous driving system to mass car makers, since it wouldn’t pose a direct competitive threat. As a bonus, rich people will probably still keeping buying expensive sportscars even after most of us are being driven around by robo-taxis.
Apple design chief Jony Ive is a huge Aston Martin fan. But for more than just brand affection, a deal for Bond’s car of choice makes a lot of sense.
With Apple’s car project appearing rudderless, Aston could be an eye-catching way to get back in the game