Apple’s plan to one day have a car, autonomous or not, in its product line is still far from being a reality. And as the weeks go by, it seems that the day of the launch of the now “mystical” Apple Car seems to have no “probable” date.
In recent weeks, several managers of the Titan project they left the company to embark on new adventures in other realities, and it is news these days that three other engineers are leaving the offices of Apple Park. An unequivocal sign that the Apple Car project is losing its pieces.
News of the new engineer leak comes from Bloomberg who reported that Apple has lost three more of those who were busy working on the Apple Car project. The three abandoned the idea of being protagonists of a future car “by Apple“To join another project that a priori can also be quite adventurous but just as stimulating: a flying taxi.
The three engineers who didn’t believe in the Apple Car project
Eric Rogers is one of the three new fugitives. He worked as chief of engineering for the radar system of the future Apple Car. Rogers left Apple to join the startup’s project Joby Aviation who plans to build a flying taxi. Rogers’ departure will be a big deal for Apple, as engineer-supervised radar systems are a key aspect of a self-driving car. In fact these allow the vehicle to function and understand where it is on the roads. Alex Clarabut, he is another of the three engineers who have changed their shirts. He was involved in Apple’s car battery project and also left the Cupertino office to work alongside Rogers at Joby Aviation.
In addition to Rogers and Clarabut, also Stephen Spiteri, another Apple engineer who was on the project Apple Car, chose to join the flying taxi team. Bloomberg comments in his article that, despite Apple’s efforts to build its own autonomous car, the company itself has never been clear about it with the engineers involved in the project. This brain drain was preceded by the resignations of other senior managers who were on the Apple Car project to leave the company. Lately, Michael Schwekutsch , who left Tesla to join Apple in 2019, went to work for Archer Aviation. And a few days ago too Soonho Ahn, Apple’s project manager for car batteries, had “fled” to Volkswagen.
The Apple Carm project, as we learn, continues to undergo enormous upheavals, as the people in charge of management change every year. The vice president of special projects Doug Field he left the company to join the Ford automaker. Field was at Apple for three years, leading the automotive project alongside the likes of Bob Mansfield and John Giannandrea. The latter is Apple’s Senior Vice President of Machine Learning and AI Strategy. At the moment, the head of AI is reportedly continuing to oversee the development of the self-driving Apple Car.
An Apple-branded car has been talked about for at least 10 years now, but today it seems to be all still on the high seas, even if, according to the analysta Ming-Chi Kuo, the release is scheduled for 2024-2025.