Apple's Automotive Team Includes Former Tesla, Ford and GM Employees
Apple's alleged automotive team consisting of hundreds of employees working on an electric vehicle includes several former Tesla, Ford and GM employees, according to 9to5Mac. The report reveals that Apple has also recruited talent from smaller firms in the automotive industry and other fields, including A123 Systems, MIT Motorsports, Ogin, Autoliv, Concept Systems and General Dynamics.
The list of recent hires from Tesla includes David Nelson, a mechanical engineering manager at the car maker until this month, and John Ireland, previously a senior powertrain test engineer at the company. Tesla's former head recruiter Lauren Ciminera also joined Apple in September and is likely responsible for recruiting additional engineers for the automotive team. The trio of hires surface just weeks after it was reported that Apple and Tesla continue to fight over top employees.
Another notable hire is Mujeeb Ijaz, who most recently served as chief technology officer at A123 Systems. Ijaz led a team responsible for research and development for the company's leading lithium-ion energy storage technology. Prior to that, he worked at Ford as an electric and fuel cell vehicle engineering manager for nearly sixteen years. The hiring adds fuel to yesterday's report that Apple faces a lawsuit for poaching key employees from A123 Systems.
The report adds that Apple has also recruited former Ford engineers David Perner and Jim Cuseo, although the latter has been with the company since 2010 as a product design lead and manager for the iMac. General Motors' Fernando Cunha recently joined Apple as well after working various engineering and product design roles at the auto maker since 2001. Dillon Thomasson of General Dynamics, Robert Gough of Autoliv, Hugh Jay of EMCO Gears and Rui Guan of Ogin are other new hires.
Last week, multiple reports from credible sources claimed that Apple is developing an electric vehicle that is possibly autonomous in a top-secret research lab near its headquarters in Cupertino, California. Some reports say otherwise, claiming that Apple is working on expanding its dashboard presence through CarPlay. These hirings suggest that Apple may be working on a larger project after all, but it remains to be seen if a full-fledged electric vehicle is in the works.
Popular Stories
The first benchmark results for the standard M3 chip surfaced in the Geekbench 6 database today, providing a closer look at the chip's CPU performance improvements. Based on the results so far, the M3 chip has single-core and multi-core scores of around 3,000 and 11,700, respectively. The standard M2 chip has single-core and multi-core scores of around 2,600 and 9,700, respectively, so the...
Apple appears to be internally testing an iOS 17.1.1 update for the iPhone, based on evidence of the software in our website's analytics logs this week. iOS 17.1.1 will almost certainly be focused on bug fixes, but it's unclear exactly which issues the update will address. The update could include the same fix for Wi-Fi connectivity issues that Apple rolled out in the first iOS 17.2 beta,...
Apple's latest M3 Pro chip in the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro has 25% less memory bandwidth than the M1 Pro and M2 Pro chips used in equivalent models from the two previous generations. Based on the latest 3-nanometer technology and featuring all-new GPU architecture, the M3 series of chips is said to represent the fastest and most power-efficient evolution of Apple silicon thus far. ...
Apple today released a new firmware update designed for the AirTag item trackers. The firmware features a build number of 2A61, up from the 2A36 firmware that came out last December. It has been nearly a year since Apple updated the firmware on the AirTags, and there is no word yet on what might be included in the update. Today's firmware release will be rolling out on a staggered basis....
The first benchmark results for Apple's M3 Max chip surfaced in the Geekbench 6 database today, providing a look at CPU performance. Based on the "Mac15,9" model identifier shown, the results appear to be for the new 16-inch MacBook Pro. The highest multi-core score for the M3 Max with a 16-core CPU is currently 21,084 as of writing. If this early result is accurate, this means the M3 Max is ...
Apple made the first beta of iOS 17.2 available to developers and public beta testers last week, and the software update includes many new features and changes for iPhones. Below, we have highlighted 10 of these new features and changes. iOS 17.2 is expected to be released to the public in December. Once available, the update can be installed in the Settings app under General → Software...
Macs equipped with the standard M3 chip still support only one external display with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz, according to Apple's tech specs. So far, the chip is available in the entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro and the 24-inch iMac. This limitation has existed since the first Apple silicon Macs with the M1 chip were released in 2020, but users can connect multiple external displays to...
The lower-cost Apple Music Voice Plan is being discontinued this month in the U.S. and all other countries where it was available, according to an Apple support document. Brazilian website MacMagazine was first to alert us to this news. "Beginning in November, Apple will discontinue the Apple Music Voice plan," said Apple. "We are focused on delivering the best, most robust music experience...
Top Rated Comments
Perhaps they're working on a space vehicle ... And it runs OS X -> Space X?
So was the cell phone business before the iPhone and music player business before the iPod.