According to news on June 3, it is reported that since 2021, three senior executives of Apple's self-driving car department have left in just six months .
According to reports, Apple has hundreds of engineers studying potential self-driving car technology, and many employees are studying how to develop complete vehicles. Leading this department is Doug Field, a former senior automotive engineer at Tesla . His management team has fewer than 12 executives. But this year alone, at least three members of the team have left.
Recently, Dave Scott, who once led the research team of Apple’s automotive-related robotics, announced his resignation as CEO of the healthcare company Hyperfine, which is committed to developing the next generation of MRI systems. Before him, Jaime Waydo, head of Apple's self-driving car safety and supervision team, left to become the chief technology officer of the startup Cavnue, which focused on ensuring the safety of self-driving cars on public roads.
In February of this year, Benjamin Lyon announced his resignation and became the chief engineer of Astra, a startup dedicated to developing technology to launch satellites into space. A few years ago, Lyon helped create Apple's original automotive team and played a key role in the development of future projects.
Although several executives have recently resigned, in the past few years, Apple’s automotive team has also added a number of celebrities, including those responsible for driving systems, manufacturing engineering, automotive interiors and exteriors, and autonomous driving software development. Former Sla executive. In addition, the team also includes other automotive industry veterans and executives who have developed key Apple products.
By selling smartphones, tablets, personal computers and services, Apple has become the world's most valuable company with a market value of more than 2 trillion US dollars. But as the technology and automotive industries have more and more speculation about Apple cars, investors and consumers have always called on the company to launch new product categories. In addition to self-driving car technology, Apple is also developing augmented reality and virtual reality devices. The first such product is planned to be released as early as next year.
According to reports, Apple’s senior vice president of machine learning and artificial intelligence, John Giannandrea, has been in charge of automotive projects since the end of last year. Since the project was launched around 2014, Apple's automotive research and development work has been restarted many times, and the management has also undergone many changes.
Apple’s initial plan was to build complete cars to compete with Tesla, but it scaled back its goals around 2016 and began to focus on developing self-driving car systems. A few months ago, the company changed its strategy again and started to develop the entire vehicle, and involved some engineers from the autonomous vehicle department in this work.
If Apple can finally launch a car, it will be on the market around 2030 at the earliest. The departure of multiple executives may add additional complexity to the company's ability to achieve automotive project goals. However, Apple has always been actively recruiting experts in the automotive industry to enrich the department's leadership team.
This is not the first time an executive has left the Apple car team. Former Ford executive Steve Zadesky was responsible for leading the Apple car team, but he left in 2016 to provide consulting services on household robots for Bumblebee Spaces. He is replaced by the rehired former Apple executive Bob Mansfield (Bob Mansfield), who has also left.
Many analysts predict that Apple will announce partnerships with auto companies as early as the first half of 2021, and may make an appearance sometime between 2025 and 2028. Rumors and reports about Apple's car development continue to receive widespread attention, as Apple's entry into the automotive industry represents one of the company's largest and most challenging new projects in its history.
As early as January and February this year, there were reports that Apple had selected Hyundai Motor’s E-GMP electric vehicle platform as the basis for the development of Apple’s cars. However, negotiations between the two parties subsequently broke down because the executives of Hyundai were worried about becoming Apple's foundry manufacturers, just like Foxconn's foundry iPhone. (Little)