However I think Samsung is planning to reboot their car business with the new wave of electric cars.
Why I think that?
There were rumors that Tesla was talking to Samsung about Samsung making batteries for Tesla, mainly because Tesla wanted to increase supply AND diversify supplier (going from Pasasonic only to Panasonic/Samsung). Considering Samsung's reputation as a reliable supplier for quality/scale, it was a good idea. Even Apple considers Samsung as essential for their parts due to quality/scale. The rumors were reported for months.
But nothing came out of it. And then we started hearing about Tesla building ITS OWN billion dollar battery factory in cooperation with Panasonic. So I started thinking WHAT happened?
My guess is that Tesla wanted guarantee that Samsung would NOT get into electric car business in America (not unreasonable looking at apple/samsung), but Samsung didn't want to go along with it. I think Samsung is willing to lose the battery business with Tesla to have another crack at the new (electric) car business again.
The Dell/samsung deal is a good example. Around 2000, Dell/Samsung signed a 10-year part deal. This was at the height of the RAM crisis (due to shortage prices were wildly fluctuation, if available at all). Samsung was up-and-coming RAM maker and Dell wanted to a secure supply of RAM. Dell signed deal with Samsung and Samsung agreed to meet parts demand from Dell (RAM, cddrive, monitor etc). It was a billion dollar, 10-year deal. Along with it, Samsung agreed to withdraw from PC business in US at the request of Dell (unknown to public at the time). This I think Samsung regretted later as Samsung was forgotten as a PC maker in US. In the decade of 2000-2010, I remember reading about good Samsung laptop reviews on notebookreview.com but you couldn't buy them in US. They were available only in S Korea/Asia/Europe/etc, but not in US. One of earlier very popular Dell laptop (everyone I knew had one) was a rebadged Samsung laptop actually.
Basically Samsung was locked out of PC business in America and it cost them dearly in brand recognition in US, which Samsung apparently wants to avoid.
In a way, Samsung not agreeing the possible Tesla's request is reasonable (I should admit I have no proof of it but circumstantial evidences support it). Samsung is ALREADY in car business (albeit it's a flop) and with the new generation of electric cars that will replace gas powered cars, Samsung made correct choice of not agreeing to Tesla's request.
