No, this makes complete sense. Tesla is opening up a huge new market, but it is under-capitalized. Also, Apple could give Tesla the design boost is desperately needs in the long term (those interiors barf...).

Those darn Tesla speculators were driving TSLA into unpurchaseable levels which in the long run may end up killing Tesla. Irony.

Why do we assume designing cars is the same as designing phones? Automotive design has been around for 100s of years before phones.

And why is this market presumed to be entirely new? Many of the auto manufacturing talents of old are still just as important in a new EV paradigm. Cars might not need combustion engines, but it’s not like the don’t need wiper blades, or seats, or paint, or branding, or a commitment to reliable manufacturing.

I suspect if it weren't for the TSLA speculators the company would've run out of money already, so they may be the reason it's still around.

Whatever the case, TSLA stock defies all reason and epitomizes "the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

This is exactly the same argument with Apple making a Phone. You can read what Palm, and Blackberry have said during the iPhone revolution era. And we all know how that turns out.

Your Phone isn't really a phone anymore. When was the last time you actually make or receive a call on it? Vs doing something else, Gaming, Content Consumption, Taking Photos etc. Despite using the name Smartphone, your iPhone is more like a Pocket Computer, or what Apple envision Newton in the 90s. A pocket computer that can also make a call when it needs to.

It is the same with Cars, AV ( autonomous vehicle ) will be nothing but a massive Computer with Batteries running on Wheels. Having said that, I think we now know Full AV isn't coming any time soon, at least not in the next 3 - 4 years. But there will be lots of R&D between now and then. Apple had lots of pieces of iPhone tech even before they started, and they still need 4 years to make it work. The Apple Car, or Project Titan will likely take a lot more time .

> You can read what Palm, and Blackberry have said during the iPhone revolution era. And we all know how that turns out.

The majority of comments made pooh-poohing the iPhone were made at public events, and intended to assuage the customers, carriers and partners present that those events. It's not reflective of what they actually believed.

In books like "Losing the Signal" (about Blackberry), journalists followed up with Blackberry execs and discovered that BB considered the iPhone a gamechanger, even if they doubted that the AT&T 3G network could handle millions of data-hungry iPhones. And in the early days, that was true. The first 3 generations of iPhones had significant complaints about dropped calls.

> Despite using the name Smartphone, your iPhone is more like a Pocket Computer

Just today I started calling them "phones", quotes included.

Where is their growth gonna come from though? Their margins on iPhones are not sustainable and there’s no huge growth in general purpose computing on the horizon. If ever a company was primed for a capital-intensive moonshot it would be Apple.

Apply s/car/phone and it was all true in the mid-2000s as well. Maybe they saw an angle you're not.

Is this meant to be parody (car => phone) or real? I honestly don't know, but if it's not parody, then I'm super curious about "no money in making cars" part.

I don't know if it's perfectly true or not but the common wisdom these days is there's "no" profit in making stuff. Cars, airplanes, toys, clothes, whatever. The "real" money comes from locking in some kind of monthly payment, whether it's a loan or a service plan or insurance or whatever. If they can't do that, they want to collect your data and sell that on an ongoing basis. I hear GM and some other car companies essentially use cars as a way to sell loans. No matter what you buy now, everyone wants to build a "relationship" (money pipeline) with you.

Or, that's why it makes sense. Apple wanted to move into the car market, and this would be a way to bootstrap that movement.

Apple made "just computers" before 2008.

Apple makes digitally enabled products that makes sense financially and is compatible with the brand. That's it. Everything is a digitally enabled product nowadays.

So the question is not what Apple is selling now, but what is compatible with their brand. They have the warchest to enter any market they wish.

Elon Musk isn't the only person trying to take over the world, some private entities just go about it a different, more subtle way due to a lack of personality or humanity. The only way to continue growth for apple is to expand into other industries that can contribute to the "apple ecosystem".

If there is "no money" in making cars, what is the growth path for Apple? Who or what should they acquire?

There likely is lots of money in health. Almost everybody claims it’s the most important thing to them, the aging population gets more health problems and many of them also get more disposable income (kids left the house, fewer holiday trips due to declining health)

That’s probably a big reason for the existence of the Apple Watch and HealthKit.

Transportation?

it's telling that the transportation market is late for disruption when you have to remind americans (or non-americans that live in the silicon valley culture, as most everyone here) that it is not just about cars...

Well, we know that Apple was working on self driving cars too, so... not surprising?