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Apple lost another executive on its self-driving car team.
Joe Bass, who has been at Apple for seven years and was the head of software engineering projects for the automotive team, recently left to join Meta.
In the past few months, Meta has poached more than 100 former Apple employees.
In order to prevent its employees from continuing to jump ship to Meta, Apple began to issue up to $180,000 in stock bonuses to key employees late last year, and 10% to 20% of engineers in some departments received this bonus.
For Apple's self-driving division, the loss of its executives is even more serious.
It has lost 6 executives last year
Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman, who reported on the matter, said that with the departure of Joe Bass, the management team formed by Apple Motors a year ago almost all left.
Last February, Benjamin Lyon, who founded Apple's original automotive team, left to join space company Astra as chief engineer.
In June, Dave Scott, the automotive robotics team, joined hyperfine as CEO, and Jaime Waydo of the autonomous vehicle safety and regulation team joined Cavnue as CTO of self-driving startup.
In September, Doug Field, the former team leader at Apple Motors, was poached by Ford to become Ford's chief advanced technology and embedded systems officer, whom Joe Bass had previously reported to;
△ Doug Field
In addition, a project manager, Dave Rosenthal, senior engineering director Michael Schwekutsch, and others left one after another...
Apple's cars have suffered many setbacks in a year, and last year Apple's multibillion-dollar joint venture with Hyundai and Kia to build self-driving electric vehicles also failed.
Gurman also believes that 2022 will be the year of success or failure for Apple cars. If Apple really plans to launch its first car in 2025, it's time to get to work non-stop.
Titan, Apple's R&D project, began as early as 2014 and has undergone several transformations since then.
Apple has studied two smart car paths, one with limited self-driving capabilities and the other with fully autonomous driving capabilities that require no human intervention, and now Apple is fully exploring a second path under the leadership of Kevin Lynch.
Kevin Lynch was previously the head of Apple's wearables division, responsible for the apple watch's software system. After Doug Field left, he succeeded him as head of the automotive division.
△ Kevin Lynch
The chip is said to be a car component developed in-house by Apple.
If you want to release the car in 3 years, Apple, which has experienced a wave of executive departures, will inevitably supplement the car team, and there should be many important personnel changes in the Apple car team in the near future.
Reference Links:
[1]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-01-23/when-will-apple-aapl-release-new-iphone-se-5g-and-ipad-air-apple-spring-event-kyrmlang
[2]https://9to5mac.com/2022/01/23/apples-self-driving-car-project-hits-another-speed-bump-as-engineering-manager-departs/