[calvintennant]

"Apple would be looking to make such an enormous leap from its core competency — building great consumer electronics".

Don't electric cars fall into the category of consumer electronics?

[TrainedMonkey]

My first thought as well, if anything I can think of two reasons why Apple would be building their own car:

1. Compete in luxury electric automotive market. Motivation is there, but I find it dubious that Apple will go for it. On the other had Apple does have everything they need to become strong player in this field (engineers, cash, supply chain, strong U.S. lobbying presence, and army of lawyers)

2. Get competence on how to build cars in order to be able to rapidly prototype integration of Apple products with car entertainment systems. Possibly design said entertainment systems for car manufacturers, or at least influence the design to give apple products an edge.

[delecti]

I agree that they phrase it oddly, but I would argue that cars are a product category with more user expectations about the particulars of functionality, and is thus less open to apple's typical refinements.

[pbreit]

No.

[Alterlife]

No? Could you explain?

Did the old film cameras fall under consumer electronics? I don't think so. What about analog telephones from the 90's? What about overhead projectors and phonograph players (I hope that's what they were called)?

Those devices have changed. I have to imagine the umbrella of 'consumer electronics' is constantly expanding. In the long term, why would cars be any different?

[agumonkey]

A car is still in a different device category. It has to be a lot more dependable and secure then a phone, with deeper social implications (life critical). Jobs managed to slip the antennagate under the rug, you can't do that with cars. IMHO this is not the kind of knowledge you can imprint in a company in a few years safely.