Apple will buy Tesla for $75b in 18 months

  1) I have no inside information. 
  2) I hold no shares of Tesla or Apple*.
  3) I do own two Teslas and spend $3k per year on Apple      products personally (at least).

Then why should I continue reading?

This maybe a ridiculous idea. But if Apple do want to acquire their way in to the Automobile industry, wouldn't it make sense to buy Tesla right now, at about $25 billion market cap.

One big hindrance that I see is Elon Musk, who IMO would not play second fiddle to anyone else.

A traditional automobile company might be a better solution, I would think. Someone like Jaguar-Land Rover given Jony Ive's background. Their market cap seems to be around $15 billion and they seem to lack an electric vehicle program (this could be where Apple comes in, with their battery expertise), unlike BMW, Daimler etc. who already have an electric cars in development/production.

In my opinion, this would be a bad idea for both Tesla and Apple. I like Tesla, because I appreciate the effort Elon Musk puts into the company and I am betting that many others like Tesla because of him as well. In my eyes, Apple buying Tesla would be the equivalent of Apple buying Elon Musk and that would make the purchase of a Tesla vehicle much less attractive to me... But then again, if Apple can somehow speed up the price drop of electric vehicles by utilizing its massive overseas engineering machinery then I'd be totally wrong and buying a Tesla vehicle would be a much more attainable goal for many.

Sounds more like what you'd like to see rather than reality. Nothing in your article suggest what's in it for Apple or even more so, what's in it for Telsa. More like how cool would it be if this were to happen.

That's possibly the most relieved I've ever been at finding out an article used a misleading headline. This would be, from my perspective, like EA buying Valve. To address his arguments individually:

1. Too broad a category; so do an awful lot of other companies. Besides, Apple doesn't do their own manufacturing.

2. Again, this is also true of tons of other companies.

3. Reasonable, but no trendy company will admit the opposite.

4. Doesn't support the conclusion.

5. This is true, and the direction Tesla takes their centre console will be interesting - I'm hoping they don't try to compete with an already fairly saturated market of app stores.

6. That's precisely the model Tesla is trying to disrupt. Neither a Tesla owner nor (hopefully) an Apple user should be willing to spend $150 on an app.

7. And I can afford a pogo stick, that's pretty poor evidence that I'm going to buy one.

8. Same goes for any store and any cool product.

9. Tesla could also achieve this without Apple.

10. True, but it doesn't really support the conclusion.

11. Again, true, but can afford =/= will buy.

12. Tesla seems to be doing just fine with designing, and I'm not sure there's a whole lot of similarity between shipping phones globally and shipping cars globally.

13. Conclusion doesn't follow from this.

14. This is true, but it follows more from driverless cars than electric cars. Right now, Tesla isn't leading research into driverless, Google is.

15. And?

16. I'm not sure that's how acquisitions work - correct me if I'm wrong, but suggesting that Musk could become CEO of Apple after they acquired it seems unrealistic at best.

17. Both are big companies with crossover in fields, I'm not sure that number is even statisically significant.

18. Incredibly subjective. Tesla's superiority in the EV world is far more clear-cut than Apple's in the tech world.

19. Not an argument.

My prediction is that this is hot air; my hope is that Musk would laugh if Apple made an offer.

This article is crap. It would be better if the list of "reasons" didnt include garbage like "Apple stores would look really F#@$%ing sexy with a car in the middle of them, no?"

Why couldn't Apple stores just function as Tesla dealerships? An Apple edition would be nice for people who want such a thing, but there's no reason to forgo all other channels.

Here's my own prediction. No, they won't.

"Prediction" really should be added to the HN title.