Tim Cook Stokes Apple Car Rumors, Says 'Massive Change' Coming To Auto Industry

Despite the fact that Apple has never been explicit about its desire to create an electric vehicle, it's hard to imagine at this point that it won't happen. Even Tesla's Elon Musk has weighed in on things, going on record to say that the Cupertino's EV team is like "Tesla's graveyard" - a statement he later went on to quell a little bit.

Back in August, it leaked out that Apple's Tim Cook had paid a visit to BMW's Leipzig factory to gauge and discuss things. Ultimately, it's not clear if BMW is going to have anything to do with Apple's foray into vehicle making, but it no doubt gave Apple a boost to get a sneak peak into what to expect.

Well, he might still be keeping mum on things, but at Wall Street Journal's WSJDLive conference, Cook had some interesting things to say. Such as the fact that the auto industry is in need of a "massive change", not just an "evolutionary one".

Cook does admit that he'd like to be able to provide people the "iPhone experience in the car", which is something possible to an extent with the company's CarPlay system. He no doubt would like to take things even further, though, and would be able to if Apple was the one designing the entire vehicle.

It's interesting, though, that while Cook, and Apple as a whole, would want to bling out its vehicle with the latest technologies, reports back in August highlighted the fact that most people simply don't care about most of the technologies that come with their "connected" vehicles. In fact, many consider them to be a waste of money, both for the consumer, and vendor alike.

None of that counts autonomous driving, which seems like a technology that many wouldn't mind having. Given that Apple's first car is is expected to launch in 2019, it could be that the company will offer autonomous driving from the get-go. Then, people would actually be able to play with the various gadgets in their car, since they don't need to worry about that whole "driving" thing.

Anyone want to place any bets on when Apple will finally stop beating around the bush and announce its EV?