Apple adds yet another former Tesla engineer to Project Titan team

Hal-Ockerse-Apple

Apple has hired yet another former Tesla engineer for its growing Project Titan team, reports MacRumors. The site points to the LinkedIn profile of Hal Ockerse, which shows he was an engineering manager at the electric car company before joining Apple in August as a “software engineer.”

Ockerse’s profile doesn’t offer any details about his new position, but he’s likely working on Apple’s “Titan” electric car project. At Tesla, he worked on hardware architecture and advanced driver assistance system components, such as hi-res cameras, radars, LiDAR and engine control units.

 

In addition to Ockerse, MacRumors exposes two other previously unknown automotive-related Apple-hires. The first is Subhagato Dutta, who joined the Cupertino company in July after working on an automotive algorithm and image algorithm development team at Texas Instruments.

 

The second is Yakshu Madaan, who also joined Apple in July as a technical program manager. According to his LinkedIn profile, Madaan worked at India’s largest automotive manufacturer Tata Motors, as an operations manager, and before that he helped develop fuel injection concepts.

 

Add these 3 hires to the growing list of expert and executive pickups Apple has made in the past 6 months, and it’s clear the company is working on something big for the automotive industry. In fact, we saw a similar hiring pattern of heath and fitness experts in the run-up to the Apple Watch.

In February, it was reported that Apple had assembled a secret team in Sunnyvale California to build an electric car, with plans to launch something by the year 2020. It has since been reported that the iPhone maker has been scoping out car manufacturing facilities and vehicle test tracks.

Source: LinkedIn via MacRumors