Why car companies can't compete with tech companies in the future of cars

Mike's List 253: The Tesla Cybertruck gets a cybercamper; bad robot pizza and more!

Apple CEO Tim Cook said this week in an interview the most profound thing that can be said about the future of cars. He said: 

"An autonomous car is a robot."

It's a perfect sentence. It answers the question: "Why would technology companies, generally, or Apple in particular, make cars?" 

The false belief is that technology companies like Apple would be making a massive pivot to get into the car business. 

What's true is that car companies would have to make a massive pivot to get into the robot business. Here’s why car companies won’t be able to compete with tech companies for the future of cars.

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Mike’s List of Brilliantly Bad Ideas

1. A camper for the Tesla Cybertruck

Tesla’s Cybertruck won’t ship until next year at the earliest, but a company is already taking orders for a Cybertruck camper called the Cyberlandr. The camper fits entirely inside the Cybertruck’s “trunk,” and folds out to reveal a solar powered camper with a beds, a full kitchen, a self-cleaning dry flush toilet, a shower, heated floors, a 32-inch TV and 4-stage water filtration system. (The filtration system recirculates the water so you can take endless showers re-using the same water.)

2. Robot pizza

After interviewing the CEO of Silicon Valley’s Zume Pizza years ago, I got super excited about the future of robotic pizza. And then I ordered one. Long story short: The pizza sucked. And their vision of baking the pizza in the truck during delivery was a lie. They baked the pizzas in advance. Parked them in a neighborhood truck. Then some kid delivered them in his old and busted car just like any other pizza delivery operation. After hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, Zume crashed and burned early last year. I’ve come to the conclusion that pizza making is beyond the capability of robots. So here comes a company called Piestro that makes a robot pizza-making vending machine. The machine uses creepy looking sci-fi premade “crust.” The robotic innards squirt way too much sauce on it, then dump way too much cheese on it, plus whatever toppings you choose. The results (pictured) speak for themselves. I don’t know know what this Play-Doh concoction is, but it’s not pizza.

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Mike’s List of Shameless Self Promotion

Here’s what I’ve been up to lately:

1. Why Amazon’s home robot sounds like a terrible idea

2. What you need to know about the new world of social media

3. A primer on Agile collaboration

4. Why Apple’s “iGlasses” will be better than you think

5. The uncertainty of cybersecurity hiring

6. Firewall services and more: What’s next for IT?

CURRENT LOCATION: Oaxaca, Mexico