Apple Car dreams: How could Apple not make an autonomous electric car someday?

A Google search for “Apple Car” yields 2.55 billion hits, so many stories that both 9to5Mac and MacRumors have provided neat summaries of “what we know so far.”

While we must keep in mind the high-gain (pun intended) echo chamber, the endemic click-baiting, and the Reality Distortion Field that emanates from Cupertino, we can’t ignore the dream of an autonomous electric car (EV) designed by Jony Ive’s team, with a clean modern user interface, sold in Apple Stores and serviced (brake fluid and pads, tires, lamps) by approved auto maintenance shops. All backed by a company with deep pockets and, rare exceptions aside, a reputation for reliable products.

Reality quickly kills the warm feeling. There’s trouble with the autonomous part of the dream: Sober people agree that full “Level 5” automation — no need ever for human intervention, from arbitrary point A to point B, in any weather — is decades away. Like anyone else’s EV the Apple Car will feature a mix of driver assistance services with no clear way to get to full autonomy…