Apple Believed To Be Operating A Secret Electric Car Program

This is going to be a tough marketplace for any company even one like Apple to break in to:

Apple Inc. may already be positioned to evolve into a global automaker in many ways that other Silicon Valley companies aren’t.

The tech company has put a few hundred employees to work on a secretive project to develop an electric automobile, a person familiar with the matter has said. While Apple often tests ideas that don’t get released, the work underscores the company’s long-held desire to play a greater role in the automotive space, which is ripe for more of a merging with users’ digital lives.

“It makes a ton of sense,” Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray Cos., said Saturday. “If you would’ve said 10 years ago, ‘Apple is going to be in the car business,’ I think people would’ve said you’re crazy – because it would’ve been crazy – and today it’s a much different company that’s able to tackle these massive addressable markets.”

Apple, with a market capitalization that’s more than $700 billion, needs to continue growing sales in iPhones, its largest revenue generator, while also expanding into new markets, such as automobiles, if it’s to reach a $1 trillion valuation, Munster said. He added that he doesn’t think Apple would bring out a car in the next five years.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but it seems with all the talk of a Google Car that Apple feels like they have to get into the car industry as well.  It seems like they should just partner with Tesla and revolutionize the car industry that way?