Apple’s Self-Driving Car Team Loses ‘Multiple Top Managers’ in Recent Months

Apple has reportedly lost some top talent on its Apple Car team in the past few months.

The bumpy road to Apple Car continues, with Bloomberg now claiming Wednesday that Apple has “lost multiple top managers of its self-driving car team” in recent months.

The company reportedly has hundreds of engineers working on self-driving software, along with multiple groups of employees working on a physical vehicle. However, multiple managers on the project have thrown in the towel this year alone, reads the report.

“The iPhone maker has hundreds of engineers working on underlying self-driving car technology as well as groups of employees working on an actual vehicle, Bloomberg News has reported. Running the division is Doug Field, a former top vehicle engineer for Tesla Inc., along with a management team of fewer than a dozen executives. At least three members of that Apple car management team have departed this year.”

David Scott, who was leading the robotics team vis-à-vis the Apple Car, constitutes one of the most high-profile departures in recent times. Mr. Scott is now slated to become the CEO of Hyperfine, a medical tech company.

Similarly, the lead manager on the Apple Car’s safety and regulations team, Jaime Waydo, also left Apple to become a CTO at Cavune, an autonomous transportation startup.

Finally, back in February, Benjamin Lyon seriously undermined the team when he became the chief engineer at satellite company Astra. Bear in mind that Lyon helped formulate the original team for the Apple Car.

The good news is that Apple continues to make new hires, suggesting that the project is far from dead and buried.

“Despite the recent departures, Apple has added notable names to the car team over the past few years, including former top Tesla executives in charge of drive systems and manufacturing engineering, car interiors and exteriors and self-driving software,” the report continues. “The team also includes other car industry veterans and executives who have developed key Apple products.”

The Apple Car project has had a tumultuous journey inside the Cupertino company. The project has been shelved and rebooted multiple times, with the company shifting its focus to AR in between. Even now, analysts and reports have suggested that the Apple Car is at least half a decade away from its launch at the earliest.

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