[abalone]

This is a great test of whether you "get" Apple. A lot of comments about what Apple should be doing, like how to take more market share from Android or Windows, actually make zero sense for Apple. This one actually does make sense.

The right kind of perspective on this is -- and it will make some people apoplectic -- future cars are like iPads with wheels. They both are basically giant batteries with very sophisticated software and well crafted interfaces. Apple has the engineering organization to deliver those key things along with a certain approach to integrating services, sales and support. What they're missing is the automotive engineering and that's something Tesla has done a great job of building up.

The price would be unusually high for an Apple acquisition but only in absolute terms. What makes it an "Apple-y" acquisition target is that it's an engineering piece of a much larger system, the "iPad on wheels", where the real future value is.

That is why Jobs was confident an Apple car would take 50% of the market. Not by building a better mousetrap but by redefining the product category.

[kamaal]

I'm not sure why you think to look at car sales in terms of 'how a car looks and feels'. There are manufacturers like BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, Ferrari etc who have already solved those problems. And not just merely that. A lot of sophisticated software already runs in cars.

These days, nearly every car manufacturer has high end cars which have these.

Unless you have simply too radical a thing to offer, everything what you say already exists.

[abalone]

You don't get it. You're still looking at Apple as just a brand.

The iPhone didn't just have a different "look and feel". It redefined the category and obsoleted everything else overnight. That same process could happen with cars.

[ihnorton]

50% of the luxury market?

[dbrian]

iCar Mini?