Maybe this is reductive but I always suspected the car project was a Jony Ive indulgence.

In the years after Jobs' death, Ive was pampered as many people attributed Apple's vision and taste to Jobs #1 and Ive #2. Losing both would've trashed the stock and Apple's reputation at that time.

Ive loves watches and cars. Despite launching the Apple Watch with a $10k+ gold version and a heavy fashion emphasis (another Ive indulgence), it fortunately became a viable product but more due to the health and fitness features.

I just don't think Apple goes down the car path without Ive at his most outsized influence at that time. But Ive wanted to put his mark on the automobile.

Now he's doing it for Ferrari but in a much more traditional sense. Buttons and switches instead of entirely touchscreen, human drivers and not driverless, etc.

Absolutely! At the very minimum, an Apple EVSE would have been a shippable product. But no, Tim couldn't even get that after 10 years, thousands of dedicated employees, and hundreds of millions of dollars spent.

Apple spent $1 billion over 10 years doing the ground work to see whether or not they wanted to get into making a car and that’s a problem?

Google is gonna spend between February and December 2026 $185 billion on their AI technology, and how much has Microsoft spent somewhere near 100 billion dollars or how about OpenAI (we don’t know yet) but that number will be my numbing or Meta which is some where in the $80 billion mark.

Tim Cook has nothing to worry about Apple didn’t squander billions of dollars they put the money where they should’ve put it in Apple Silicon and everything else they do well.

Google got a $1 billion refund and OpenAI got nothing. I’m sure Sam thought when he went into the meeting with Tim Cook that he was gonna come out with $50 billion and he came out with zip. Apple made the right choice.