Apple still reputedly planning to build an iCar.

The apparent secret sauce:
They watched the livestream of Tesla’s battery day;
They also took notes;
Then those notes were exclusively leaked to Reuters.

So they could hire, hoping to begin production by

[checks notes]

2025.

fwiw
In 2011 I placed a number of 10 to 1 bets with friends that Apple would have an iCar in-market before April of ’21.

Going to lose.

But it always seemed like the right play for them, and I’m convinced that if Jobs hadn’t passed they would have made that bet (and made mine)

At the time (2011) people were arguing that Apple would vertically integrate through TV manufacture (which I always thought was inane).

There was (and still is!) so much transformation-potential in automotive, but they waited too long; Tesla is tearing through their green space.

Here’s the Reuters piece https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-autos-exclusive/exclusive-apple-targets-car-production-by-2024-and-eyes-next-level-battery-technology-sources-idUSKBN28V2PY?il=0&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=Social

That Apple didn’t make a compelling bid for Tesla (as it skated across its balance sheet amidst Model 3’s production hell) is curious to me.

Similar brand-affinity-profiles, and the soothing promise of Apple’s operational excellence would have easily assuaged Wall Street.

It is hard to imagine @elonmusk under somebody else’s umbrella however, and so there may not have been a workable bid available.

(And in that counterfactual history it is hard to imagine Tim Cook & Co letting Tesla proceed with the CyberTruck.)