Apple's CEO Says Car Industry Faces 'Massive Change'

The value equation in virtually all automobiles has shifted from industrial-age components to electronics and software.

Which means that competition in the future will come not just from other auto-makers, but from those enterprises that give consumers the optimal car-owning - and driving - experience, especially given the fact that the trends suggest driver-less cars and a decline in ownership versus renting and leasing may already be under way. JL

Sam Byford reports in The Verge:

Not just an evolutionary change. Cook says Apple's goal is to give people "an iPhone experience in the car. Software becomes an increasingly important component of the car of the future. Autonomous driving becomes much more important. And so a lot of the major technologies in the car shift from today's combustion engine-centric focus."
The Apple car rumors aren't showing any signs of slowing down, and CEO Tim Cook isn't doing much to dispel them. On stage with Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Gerard Baker, Cook shared some thoughts on the future of the car industry, without explicitly confirming Apple's potential entry.
"We'll see what we do in the future," he told Baker. "But I do think that industry is at an inflection point for massive change. Not just an evolutionary change." Cook says in the short term Apple's goal is to give people "an iPhone experience in the car," referring to the current CarPlay system, but it's clear he sees cars eventually going in a more ambitious direction.
"We'll see what we do in the future.""Software becomes an increasingly important component of the car of the future," he says. "Autonomous driving becomes much more important. And so a lot of the major technologies in the car shift. Electrification, etc — they shift from today's combustion engine-centric kind of focus. And so it would seem like there will be massive change in that industry, massive change."