Will my home country be the birth place of Apple Car? (+history lesson)

Thoughts on Apple Car, Part 23

News broke this week that Apple was in contact with Austrian manufacturing and supplier company Magna Steyr to assemble Apple Car, after conversations with Germany’s big three failed.

Above Avalon’s Neil Cybart is „becoming increasingly confident in positioning Magna Steyr as the initial partner for Apple Car assembly“ and goes on to say:

Think of Magna Steyr as the Foxconn of cars.

Located near Graz, the capital of Austrian federate state Styria, the company is a subsidiary of Magna International, founded by Canadian-Austrian Frank Stronach.

Magna Steyr was created after Magna International bought the remaining parts of Steyr-Daimler-Puch.

• Steyr and Puch were two Styrian mobility manufacturers that grew rapidly during the world wars.
• Daimler you may know already.

In the nineties, both Steyr and Puch went through a period of joint ventures, split-ups and eventually forming a conglomerate with Daimler. The triple never took off however, and so it was Frank Stronach’s Magna who picked up the assets and swallowed the companies into Magna’s international group.

Side story: Who is Stronach?

Frank Stronach is a Styria-born Canadian immigrant, who became a self-made millionaire with his business of mergers and acquisitions surrounding Magna. After Arnold Schwarzenegger, he is a second well-known Styrian to gain international success in North America.

Stronach is deeply entrenched with Canadian and Austrian politics, the latter saw his right-wing populist party running for seats in the Austrian National Parliament 2013.

Back to Apple

Stronach will probably not be part of talks between Apple and Magna at this point, but there are two interesting things to note about the company:

1. They have capacity

As Neil Cybart already quoted in his subscriber email, Magna is currently only manufacturing three cars: Two BMW Group „Mini, and the Mercedes G-Class. Three premium carlines with overseeable volumes. But „the contract between BMW and Magna Steyr for the MINI Countryman and MINI Paceman will end later this year, freeing up production space“ (Cybart). This means there’s opportunity for Apple to get a good deal.

2. They think ahead

Between 2005 and 2012, the company showed 7 concept cars at European motor shows. Under the umbrella brand MILA, all variations experimented with different combinations of engines, but also transformable roof technology, as well as seating arrangements in the interior.

This ain’t a dumb assembly company only executing plans of their clients – they are capable of thinking beyond what’s on their contracts.

Austria vs Germany

With the report of „Frankfurter Allgemeine“ newspaper about a possible Apple-Magna deal, all other German papers followed with their own stories about the developments. However, they ran headlines with much more arrogance in their tone:

BMW, Daimler reject cooperation with Apple over „iCar“ (Handelsblatt)

In what would be a surprising turn of events, an Austrian supplier could land one of the biggest manufacturing deals of the next decade, leaving stubborn German industry giants in the dust. To appreciate this, you have to be aware of the century-old identity struggle between the two countries, who are forever bound together in a hate-love relationship, with Austria feeling like the smaller sibling to its elder brother.