By 'less' minimalistic than Tesla, assume you meant you believe Apple would be even 'more' minimalistic. But I always imagined Apple would be able to be the Tesla without the Musk tradeoffs. That is yes, certainly far minimal than typical cars, but less minimal than Tesla who seemed to think it would be cool to have door handles retrack, and other missing common features, because they seemed cool. But then he never took enough feedback to others to realize while cool, not practical. Apple I believe would have been able to pull back and find a better balance I believe. And if they did overstep, they would be less stubborn in pulling back in a following version than Musk.

Though the market of cars from makers like Lucid and other premium options means Apple can only differentiate so much. And people critize every tiny detail of things the size of watch or a phone, imagine a car. The abilities for people to criticize things would be endless. And the fact that cars crash, no matter how well designed, and there would be an endless number of people finding creative ways to exploit any vulnerabilities to make it look as dangerous as possible. The risk for Apple seems unbelievable vs the gain.

Where is with AI, that intertwines everything they already do, with far more manageable risks. I'm very doubtful on their AI prospects, but certainly would prefer to see Titan level budgets spent towards AI. I'm looking at you Siri!