In an interview with Bloomberg, iPod co-creator and former Apple senior VP Tony Fadell talked shop about the future merge of the tech industry and the automotive industry—and let it slip that he and Steve Jobs had tossed around the idea of an Apple smart car as early as 2008.

Fadell, who is now the CEO of Nest Labs and one of the lead designers on Google’s next version of Google Glass, recounted how he and Jobs would go on walks together and brainstorm what it would take to make an iCar a reality.

“If we were to build a car, what would we build? What would a dashboard be? And what would this be? What would seats be? How would you fuel it or power it?” said the tech entrepreneur. 

While the jump from smartphone to smart car might seem a bit much, Fadell posited that the leap wasn’t that much to begin with, pointing out that like any mobile phone with a data plan, a car also needs a battery, a motor, a computer, and a general robotic infrastructure. 

“If you look at an iPhone, it has all the same things. It even has a motor in it,” said Fadell. “But the hard stuff is really on the connectivity and how cars could be self-driving.” 

In the end, it looks like Jobs made the right choice in the aughts to decide against pursuing the iCar. With the automotive industry crisis of 2008-2010, and the subsequent 2013 bankruptcy of Detroit, its historical and productive homestead, the Apple CEO might have squandered millions of dollars on a lost venture.

“At the end of the day, what was the biggest one that had the biggest dramatic impact on the world?” Fadell said, nodding to the dodged bullet. “We said, ‘OK, we’re going to focus our energy on that [the iPhone]. Forget all this other stuff.’ “

Source: Tech Times