Wouldn't people have said the same thing with cell phones back in the day? In fact I had a discussion with an Apple store employee asking what they thought about the rumor that Apple was going to be releasing a phone. He said that there was no way Apple would even want to be in that space. I'm not saying they will get into cars, but you just never know.

They can make the mp3 players in enough quantity in a single place. You can air freight mp3 players to do JIT delivery.

With cars that’s not possible.

This is true. I would say, however, getting into phones meant dealing with carriers and such. That is still not to the same level of complexity of a car, but I could see Apple partnering with an existing maker to help fill in areas that they don't have skills in. They did that when they partnered with Google for webservices during the iPhone initial release.

> the biggest challenge will be manufacturing

Don't underestimate the challenge here. Making an MP3 player is not that different from making a computer. Making a car is very, very different.

It took Tesla a decade to learn this. And they’re just getting around to the ideas that the industry had 100 years to develop and refine.