Three more key engineers have reportedly left Apple's much-rumored self-driving car project, adding to the numerous reported departures over the past year and raising uncomfortable questions about its future. Apple's rumored self-driving car project, codenamed "Titan," has supposedly been in the works for years, but it's incredibly secretive and very little is known about it among those outside the team.
Multiple leaks, rumors, and speculations about the Apple car have revealed a few little details over the past year, but much of it remains shrouded in mystery. The company hasn't even officially confirmed the existence of the project, although CEO Tim Cook hinted about it while talking about autonomous devices during an interview earlier this year.
According to a Bloomberg report, Apple recently lost three more engineers from its autonomous car project. One of the people who reportedly left is Eric Rogers, who worked with the project's radar team as its head of engineering. Another person said to be leaving the company is Alex Clarabut, who allegedly worked on the car’s batteries. The final person on the list is Stephen Spiteri, who supposedly worked as a hardware engineering manager. All three reportedly joined aviation startups developing flying taxis. While Rogers left for Joby Aviation, Clarabut and Spiteri joined a company called Archer Aviation. Apple declined to comment on the developments.
This Is Not The First Mass Exodus From Project Titan
While reports about Apple's autonomous car project have been doing the rounds for a while, not all of it has been positive. The project is believed to have already lost a number of key people over the past year, including a notable exodus earlier this year when several top managers left the company for presumably greener pastures. According to a Bloomberg report from June, one of the key departures from that period include Dave Scott, who had been leading the robotics teams for Project Titan. The leader of the safety and regulations team, Jamie Waydo, and a key member of Apple's original Titan team, Benjamin Lyon, also left the company to pursue other opportunities.
Apple also supposedly lost another key member of its Project Titan team a few months ago. Doug Field, who joined Apple from Tesla as a VP on the special projects team, left the company for Ford Motors. However, Archer Aviation seems to be particularly interested in poaching people from the Apple car project. Apart from its two latest acquisitions, the company also recently hired Michael Schwekutsch, who had earlier left Tesla to join Apple as senior director of engineering for Special Projects Group in 2019.
Apart from losing several key personnel in leadership positions, Project Titan has also been mired in numerous controversies ever since the program is believed to have started in 2014. Reports even suggested that Apple shelved the project for good in 2016 following persistent leadership issues, internal strife and other problems, although subsequent leaks suggested that wasn't the case. Still, problems reportedly continued in the Titan project, with the company slashing the team down in a massive reorganization back in 2019, removing over 200 employees. While some of them were relocated to other areas of the company, the rest were laid off. The latest exodus is yet another bump in the road for Apple's autonomous car project, and it will be interesting to see how things will pan out moving forward.