>I was always rather puzzled by the car. I can’t see them ever competing even with the small makers like Jaguar or Polestar or Lamborghini. They’re certainly not going to take on Ford or Mazda or Honda.
That was what people saying about them getting in music players, phones, and smart watches.
The average car is crap compared to what it could be - and that's without any self-driving involved either: purely the basic car functionality has seen little thought UX and convenience wise in 50+ years.
>Nobody was saying that about music players and smart watches
Those things were said for both music players and smart watches, by pundits and competitors alike.
E.g. re the Apple Watch, here's a Forbes summary: "In 2015, the year the Apple Watch was launched, LVMH watch division president and Tag Heuer CEO Jean-Claude Biver said the Swiss industry was not afraid of Apple’s new product, because it could not be repaired in a thousand years or eighty years, nor inherited by children, nor would it ever become a status symbol. As is always the case when disruption occurs in an industry, traditional competitors are not able to see the threat, and continue to try to analyze it according to the variables that were important yesterday."
When Apple got into music players no one cared because they were waiting for the company to die.
When Apple got into watches there were lots of rumors they were for years first, and it made sense as an extension to the iPhone. Remember the Pebble already showed the basic idea could be useful.
That was what people saying about them getting in music players, phones, and smart watches.
The average car is crap compared to what it could be - and that's without any self-driving involved either: purely the basic car functionality has seen little thought UX and convenience wise in 50+ years.