Head of Mac Engineering Leaves Apple for a Position at Volkswagen

Johann Jungwirth, the man who lead Mercedes Benz Research & Development North America, joined Apple in September 2014 to become the chief of Mac Systems Engineering. He was supposed to play an important role in the company’s Project Titan – the electric car project. But not anymore: He recently joined Volkswagen as head of Digital Transformation, according to his LinkedIn profile, as spotted by AppleInsider.

Volkswagen announced the new leader on Tuesday. Jungwirth will report directly to Volkswagen CEO Matthias Müller.

“With the new function and the appointment of Jungwirth, Volkswagen is strongly reinforcing its position in digitalization, which is a very important future field for the automotive industry,” Volkswagen said in a release.

Jungwirth was named as a member of Apple’s Project Titan team in February, probably in view of his previous position at Mercedes, where he was in charge of the car maker’s R&D efforts in the areas of the connected car, UI and telematics, and advanced user experience design, among others.