Anyway: except for the obvious answer "money" I don't really see why Apple feel the need to compete in the autonomous car market. Is it because Samsung makes cars?
I don't see it as Apple trying to compete, but Apple attempting to serve their customers a better end product that ultimately make all other Apple products better in the process. For example, I get into my Apple car environment and so does the rest of my Apple ecosystem. It'd be nice for Siri to say, "I've prepared your documents for you to review for your 10am meeting, enjoy your ride."
About 2/3 of Apple's profit comes from iPhones.
Apple was a household name before the iPhone existed, because of the iPod.
While Cook is mentioning it officially today, as you know they have been hiring countless people from the auto industry for many many years as they work on the tech. AI is integratal to Apple across all their product lines so makes sense to also do AI for autonomous systems such as a car. Apple isn't saying they will build their own car necessarily, they are saying they would build the underling tech for the car, that they would then presumably license to luxury car makers.
That's not true, unless you define "car tech" very narrowly. Samsung has been in the car business since 1994:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Samsung_Motors
"In the early 1990s, Samsung's Chairman Kun Hee Lee recognised the automotive industry as the culmination of several others. For the Samsung Group, this would allow to leverage resources and technologies from the entire group including Samsung Electrics and Samsung Electronics."
More automation benefits Apple inasmuch as the less time people spend on tasks like driving, the more time they have to spend using their iPhone/iPad/Mac. But they are still very different problem domains, and it's not clear to me how most of Apple's strengths in creating consumer-friendly electronics will help it in automation, when the whole point is to eliminate human interaction.
It seems like Apple would be better off just investing some of its cash pile into a plethora of automation startups. Let those startups concentrate on automating everything, while Apple concentrates on capturing all the free time it opens up for people.
Apple has a history of bringing things in-house (see P.A. Semi and the A* chips).
Altough since their skills are in design, if they design a car/shuttle(even with a human rider) that multiple people ride together, AND enjoy that experience - they would have something big on their hands.