Since 2017, Apple has attracted "scores of employees" away from Tesla, including manufacturing, security, and software engineers. However, not all of the recent hires are going to the company's secretive vehicle initiative, Project Titan. Instead, some are headed elsewhere in the company where it needs software, display, optics, and battery-tech talent for other products, according to CNBC.
Doug Field, who once worked as Apple's vice president of Mac hardware, is returning to the company after a five-year stint at Tesla. He's coming back to work on Apple's all-secretive "Project Titan" automotive initiative, according to Daring Fireball.Â
Apple has expanded its fleet of vehicles available for self-driving testing in recent months. In California, it now has the third largest fleet. What Apple plans on doing after this testing remains to be seen.
A former Apple employee accused of stealing trade secrets plead not guilty in a California court on Monday. Xiaolang Zhang, who worked on Apple's self-driving car initiative, is being prosecuted on one federal charge of Theft of Trade Secrets. His plea comes just over a week since his arrest.
A former Apple employee was arrested over the weekend and is facing federal charges of Theft of Trade Secrets. Xiaolang Zhang, a hardware engineer who recently worked for the company, was arrested on Saturday at San Jose International Airport while attempting to board a flight to China, according to the San Jose Mercury News.
Apple has picked up another high profile engineer for its self-driving car project. The Information reports that the company has hired Jaime Waydo, an autonomous vehicle expert who previously worked at NASA, and was more recently a senior engineer at Google's Waymo division.
Apple's autonomous car project is an open secret in Silicon Valley. The latest update comes from a report on Jalopnik that asserts Apple is leasing the a proving ground previously owned by Fiat-Chrysler.
Apple's kept its self-driving research secret for years, but now the company has publicized some of its autonomous driving software techniques that improve obstacle detection.
Here's your closer look at Apple's autonomous Lexus vehicle, courtesy of self-driving startup Voyage co-founder MacCallister Higgins who captured a video of the SUV and posted it to Twitter last night.
If you needed another proof that Apple has indeed drastically scaled back its autonomous and electric vehicle initiatives, here's one: multiple engineers on Project Titan—many of whom originally joined the iPhone maker from Detroit car makers and suppliers—have now left the Cupertino giant to join the secretive automotive startup Zoox.
Apple's Project Titan initiative has shifted from building its own automobile to designing autonomous driving software so the Cupertino giant, according to Business Insider this morning, now appears to be eyeing the ride-hailing and ride-sharing market.
Project Titan, Apple's secretive automotive initiative, switched gear a year ago to re-focus from building actual car hardware to designing autonomous driving technology.