One of the nice things about the electric car business is the the part count is a lot lower, they are basically much simpler devices, and thus should be able to be made much more cheaply.

We may see a Yugo level electric car for $10,000 in a few years.

This would allow for margin expansion, especially if Apple can innovate in the manufacturing side (eg: go one better on automating the factory)

Plus since currently a Toyota RAV4 level vehicle goes for $30k-$40k, if Tesla gets down to the low $30k, Apple could produce a car for the $40k price point and be making $10k-$15k profit on each one.

Lower gross margin than the phone business, but offers the opportunity of significant revenue upside.

Plus with Apple there would be follow on revenue as well.

Since people are in the habit of paying mid $30k for a car right now, while there will be cheaper electric cars at the lower end of the market, Apple wouldn't require people to change behavior to be able to afford a car that gives Apple the kind of margins it wants.

Plus I expect there will be several innovations that are things "only apple can do" that add value-- the interiors of cars and especially the electronics and instrumentation of modern cars are terrible. Even the Tesla which tried a new approach, I think has bad usability. There's a lot of opportunity there.