[touristtam]

Tesla started by partnering with Lotus who is a well established small automobile constructor. Those guys have made production car as well as racing cars for year. Apple on the other hand went directly to a well established luxury automotive European brand and told them to transfer the technology. Of course the car manufacturer would refuse. The brand impact is too big if Apple is to fail.

The investment for manufacturing a modern car are huge, and you need someone like Musk no Cook to take on the challenge of starting from scratch, and the supplier market for car part is entangled into cartel like behaviour, which will be very hard to break by an outsider.