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Comment by russnewcomer | Hacker News Reader

Apple has lots of cash in accounts outside the U.S. that it can't/won't repatriate for tax reasons. They want to get into the car space. McLaren (from this not-a-car-guy-perspective) seems to have a similar corporate cultural ethos to Apple, plus they are English and therefore fewer language/cultural issues integrating.

Basically, I'd suspect half the reason that Apple is going this route because it's quicker and cheaper to use that overseas cash to acquire experience than it is to try to build it internally.

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Along with the corporate cultural ethos (Ron Dennis is very similar to Steve Jobs in his attention to detail and demands of his company), McLaren has a strong engineering culture and "consults" for many other companies. I agree it would be a good "culture fit".

McLaren also consults and does R&D for the British Olympic cycling team, so it's not just cars we're talking about. In fact, I'd imagine the world class materials research and manufacturing that McLaren does is of massive interest to Apple (carbon fiber all the things!)

Can you explain their contribution? In the Rio Olympics the british velodrome team used Cervelo bikes like every other top team.

https://www.cervelo.com

https://www.cervelo.com/en-ca/races-and-athletes/british-cyc...

> Can you explain their contribution

On the materials side there are things such as the resin the British team coats the bikes in is applied and manufactured by McLaren.

I think the greatest contribution is probably the data analysis they provide the team during the events (for example, the british team bring their own cameras, sensors on everything that moves, etc.) . More info: http://www.mclaren.com/appliedtechnologies/case-study/uk-spo...

Company spokesperson: "Oh no, we didn't design or manufacture the advanced ultra light weight winning bikes - we made the resin and sensors."

Next thing we'll hear about how they helped design the athlete's antiperspirant.

Marginal Gains. (I'm not sure what your point is.)

What a bizarre, forthright anti-McLaren angle you're taking in this thread.

Sensors

http://www.mclaren.com/appliedtechnologies/case-study/uk-spo...

"A good example is our collaboration with Team GB cyclists. Drawing on our design expertise, we created sensor hardware to be fitted within bike frames. A non-GPS positioning system was created (GPS being unreliable inside velodromes) and bespoke data analysis software developed to monitor speed, power, cadence and other valuable metrics."

Here is a Bloomberg article talking about their data analysis consulting: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-02/mclaren-us...

Mclaren also collaborated with Specialized on the development of the S-Works Venge bike.

http://venge.specialized.com/#/sworks-mclaren-venge/working-...

And the new Roubaix which came out this month.

According to UCI regulations, all equipment used in races must be available for sale on the market, so in theory, they don't have better bicycles.

However, chances are Cervelo only manages to deliver their newest designs to British cycling in time for important races.

The scenario likely is somewhat like this: Cervelo develops new bikes in cooperation with British cycling, as that gives them a rich sponsor willing to pay for experimental designs.

Also, bikes like these bikes are custom sized to their rider, and making one takes lots of time.

British cycling doesn't have any incentive to finalize their design months before the Olympics because that would give Cervelo time to make bikes for the competition, and would rob them of time in which they could try out yet another bike.

So yes, others can order those bikes, but chances are they cannot get them delivered in time.

Also, chances are that British cycling knows better what kind of bike they want. Not everybody has the resources to evaluate zillions of minute variations on a bike frame in a wind tunnel.

(Some background info at http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/racing/olympics/british-... (2012))

> Also, bikes like these bikes are custom sized to their rider, and making one takes lots of time.

CF vacuum resin infusion layup (which I assume they're doing) is pretty fast, I can't see how making a complete bike from scratch would take more than two days if all the parts are in stock.

(That doesn't mean they don't have long wait times still.)

>...Cervelo bikes like every other top team.

Not true. There was actually quite a bit of variety. The French (patriotically) used Look bikes for Example.

I only know this because Barry Bonds rides a $20k McLaren Tarmac:

https://www.strava.com/athletes/8976

McLaren make about as many cars in a year as Ford makes in an hour. They are not who I'd look to as a partner with experience at mass producing cars. However they may be a good partner if Apple wants to make something targeted higher, e.g. people who might be looking at a Tesla.

The cheapest McLaren is about 150% of the price of the most expensive expensive Tesla. McLaren competes with companies like Ferrari and Lamborghini not Tesla.

Yeah it doesn't even make sense from the "competing with Tesla" standpoint. I don't understand what Apple is hoping to gain from this.

>> English and therefore fewer language/cultural issues integrating.

What? You do know iPhone is manufactured in China.

Certainly (and Brazil, too, right?). But most of the design, both software and hardware, is done in the U.S. by primarily english speaking teams. If Apple is buying McLaren, they aren't buying McLaren to make the cars, not at the scale McLaren produces versus what Apple's intent has to be. They're buying them for the knowledge of how to use not-exactly-standard materials to design and fabricate cars.

Foxconn, as it is currently constituted, isn't going to be making Apple cars.

> Foxconn, as it is currently constituted, isn't going to be making Apple cars.

Apple EV is a few years away. Foxconn is certainly not standing still in this few years. A lot of things can happen, including Foxconn pivoting to manufacturing high-end EVs. [0][1] You just never know!

[0]: http://gas2.org/2014/09/04/foxconn-building-814-million-batt...

[1]: http://www.allchinatech.com/tencent-and-foxconns-smart-ev-co...

Right, I should have been more clear in how I made that last statement. Let me try again.

"Foxconn, as it is currently constituted, is not in a position to be assisting Apple with the design process that goes into making a car."

I have no doubt that Foxconn would happily go through the expenditures and pain to contract with Apple to build an EV.

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