Apple and the End of the Car as We Know It

For a century, the automobile was a system of interoperating mechanics: engine, transmission, drive shaft, brakes, etc. As those mechanics evolved, electronic sensors and processors were brought in to assist them, but the concepts changed little. The result was cars with dozens or hundreds of specialized microchips that didn't talk to each other. Now that auto makers are moving to electric motors, elaborate entertainment systems and adaptive cruise control, cars need central computers to control all these things--why not use them to control everything? At the hardware level, this might just mean fewer chips handling more of a car's functions. Yet it has profound implications for what future cars will be capable of, how car makers will make money, and who will survive--and thrive--in what could soon be a global automotive industry made unrecognizable to us today.