Apple’s Project Titan working on its first autonomous passenger vehicle “Apple Car” is facing a talent drain issue. Recently, the project’s director of autonomous systems CJ Moore has resigned to join a global automotive technology company, Luminar.
Moore joined Apple in August 2021 and left only after 9 months in May 2022. Prior to that Moore worked at Tesla on autopilot software for seven years. Now, he will serve as vice president of software at Luminar.
Is Apple Car facing development issues again?
Reportedly, Apple’s EV (electric vehicle) with a level 5 autonomous automobile will not require any human intervention for navigation which might launch by 2025-2027. Therefore, the loss of a seasoned software engineer can be considered a major setback for Apple Car.
According to Luminar’s announcement, Moore will lead the company’s software development team to work on advanced safety and autonomous solutions.
CJ Moore joins as vice president of software. Moore will lead Luminar’s global software development team, and will be instrumental in advancing Sentinel, Luminar’s full-stack advanced safety and autonomous solution. He brings an intense “build and ship” mentality and deep experience in embedded software and systems engineering to Luminar.
This is not the first news of concern related to the Project Titan. Earlier, tech analyst Ming-Chi Kuo hinted at a possible lapse in Apple Car’s development. He wrote that “the Apple Car project team has been dissolved for some time. The reorganization within the next three to six months is necessary to achieve the goal of mass production by 2025.”
And in the past year, Project Titan lost several key engineers. Former Apple Car chief Doug Field joined Ford Motors as chief advanced technology and embedded systems officer, Apple’s former global head of battery development Soonho Ahn joined Volkswagen to develop batteries for its electric vehicle (EV) projects, and former engineering for Special Projects Group, Micheal Schwekutsch joined Archer as its senior vice president of engineering and three engineers have left Apple to join electric aviation startups.
The incoming news related to Apple Car raises concerns that will the EV’s be launched in the next 5 to 6 years?
