Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman claims in the latest edition of the Power On newsletter that Apple has lost another manager from its Project Titan self-driving car team. This is just the most recent departure from Apple’s revolving door environment.
Joe Bass, the chief of software engineering program management for Apple’s automobile team, reportedly left the business after seven years, according to Gurman. This move was confirmed by Bass on his LinkedIn page. Bass has been promoted to the position of director of technical program management at… Meta.
With the departure of Bass, practically the entire Apple automobile management team that was in place just a year ago is no longer in place. In early 2021, Dave Scott, Jaime Waydo, Dave Rosenthal, and Benjamin Lyon all left. In September, Doug Field, the automobile team’s manager, decided to leave. Michael Schwekutsch, who was in charge of Apple’s hardware project, was the next to arrive. After that, the finest engineers bolted. Before reporting to Kevin Lynch, the new head of Apple’s automobile team, Bass had reported to Field.
According to Gurman, 2022 will be a “make-or-break year” for Apple’s Car project. Bloomberg reported in November that Apple aims to deploy a self-driving electric vehicle as soon as 2025.
Apple is aiming for a four-year debut of its self-driving car, less than the five- to seven-year schedule that some engineers predicted early this year. However, the timeline is uncertain, and the company’s ability to meet the 2025 deadline is contingent on the company’s ability to build the self-driving system, which is an ambitious undertaking on that timeline.
According to Bloomberg, Lynch’s goal for Apple Car is not to simply add self-driving technologies to existing electric vehicles but to leapfrog the EV market with a vehicle that can genuinely drive itself and its occupants.
Apple’s car team had been experimenting with two different approaches for several years: creating a model with limited self-driving capabilities focused on steering and acceleration – similar to most current Tesla Inc. cars – or creating a version with full self-driving capability that doesn’t require human intervention.
Engineers are now focusing on the second option under the direction of the project’s new head, Apple Watch software executive Kevin Lynch. According to the people, Lynch is pushing for a car with a full self-driving system in the first generation. They asked not to be identified because the discussions are confidential.
The issue is that as a result of this report, Apple has been losing more and more personnel from this project. Now we must wait and see how things progress in the coming weeks and months.
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