Is car manufacturing a high margin business? If not then I doubt Apple is working on bringing a car to market.
That being said, I’m surprised they are still seriously on it, given how the prospect of general-purpose FSD has largely fizzled out.
Gross and operating margins are pretty high in the luxury car industry, on par with iPhones. Personally, I don't think Apple would release a luxury car. I think it's more likely to partner with manufacturers of premium cars.
It might be useful to make a small number of cars within Apple, to align on their north star vision for design, to lobby manufacturers in that direction, and to build up internal knowledge of the market they'd be selling into.
But you're right, the margins on manufacturing and selling the whole vehicle would be a poor allocation of capital.
It seems to me that most of the bestselling Apple products are more premium than luxury, why would it be different with cars? And if not, why would they profit from margins that are usually associated with luxury cars?
It isn't quite as good as their normal ~40%, but then again those are not $50k+ devices either.