How Apple could change cars forever — or fail trying

The news Friday that Apple has up to 1,000 employees actively working on some kind of car — a kind of "electric minivan," not just software in the dashboard — set off a nuclear bomb of speculation, jokes and lukewarm takes. At one extreme came the Detroit-centric reaction, the "oh, this carbuilding business is sooo hard and costly" view, which felt dated when it was deployed against Preston Tucker. From the left coast came the Silicon Valley excitement at impending disruption and the potential profits, epitomized by investor Jason Calacanis predicting Apple will buy Tesla for $75 billion in 18 months.

Those extremes have a fingertip grip in reality; car building is hard, which is why Tesla was the first successful U.S. automaker start-up since the Dodge Brothers in the 1920s, and won't be profitable until 2020. And Silicon Valley already boasts a growing automotive industry focused on the software needed for most every component, from dashboard dining apps to self-driving vehicles. But if Apple decides to build a car, it will be because cars are turning into the kind of products Apple excels at.

The real clue to Apple's goals arrived in a different article this weekend — a long New Yorker magazine profile of Jonathan Ive, Apple's senior vice president of design and the man who's given Apple its signature look in everything from iPod Nanos to Apple Stores. (The long tables in those stores are mirrors of the ones Ive uses in the design studio.) Like many designers, Ive cops to being a bit of a car nut; he owns an Aston Martin DB4 and rides in a Bentley Mulsanne for commuting. And in the profile, Ive admits to critiquing current car design with recent hire Mark Newson (who has a Ford concept in his portfolio) and finding it wanting:

It's not like these are new ideas to automakers. The car at the top of this article was the Infiniti Emerg-E concept, an electric plug-in hybrid from 2012. Since then, most major luxury automakers — BMW, Audi, Porsche and Infiniti to name a few — have begun working on Tesla-like luxury electric models, with far greater ranges, far better performance and more striking designs than the city-only EVs they focus on today. Apple could be just noodling around, trying to embrace a transportation ecosystem, or even keeping its employees from getting poached by Tesla. And Apple isn't infallible; see the Apple TV for exhibit A.

But when Apple has an idea, it tends to stick with it until it succeeds. If you doubt for a second that Apple could peel off a few billion dollars and upset the auto industry without blinking, there's a Walkman for you.