Apple’s car obsession is all about taking eyes off the road

Tech giants are looking to capture the last unclaimed corner of consumers’ attention during their waking hours: the amount of time people spend in cars. Americans were behind the wheel for 307.8 hours in 2016, or around six hours a week, according to the latest available data by the American Automobile Association. — Car vector created by freepik - www.freepik.com

At first glance, the forays Apple Inc, Google and other technology giants are making into the world of cars don’t appear to be particularly lucrative.

Building automobiles requires factories, equipment and an army of people to design and assemble large hunks of steel, plastic and glass. That all but guarantees slimmer profits. The world’s top 10 carmakers had an operating margin of just 5.2% in 2020, a fraction of the 34% enjoyed by the tech industry’s leaders, data compiled by Bloomberg show.