Apple has not been vocal about its electric car plans, but Bloomberg reports that the iPhone maker has hired Tesla's Autopilot software engineer to work with its EVs. Bloomberg was told by sources close to the situation that Apple hired Christopher CJ Moore as its self-driving technology engineer. Hell reports to Stuart Bowers (another ex-pat Tesla executive who was previously vice president of engineering).
Moore caused controversy by calling Elon Musk's self-driving claims exaggerated during his time at Tesla. Musk claimed in January that the Tesla car would be capable of driving itself with greater reliability than human beings. However, the self-driving software is still in beta and a driver must control the vehicle at all time.
Moore caused controversy by calling Elon Musk's claims of full self-driving abilities exaggerated.
Moore noted that Tesla is currently at Level 2. Level 2 refers to the vehicle's level of autonomy. Level 5 means full autonomy. Moore was later called to testify in the Tesla accident that killed two people. Initial reports indicated that there was no driver in the Tesla crash, but the National Transportation Safety Board stated last month that it found that the driver's seat was in use during the incident.
Project Titan, Apple's electric car project codenamed, is still shrouded in secrecy. However, we do know that Apple has been hiring EV specialists from other companies, especially Tesla.
Doug Field, Apple's head of the Apple car project, was fired by Ford. Apple then hired Kevin Lynch, an ex-CTO at Adobe and Apple Watch. Apple also hired Ulrich Kranz (co-founder of Canoo) who assisted BMW with its i3 & i8 programs. Apple had previously hired Andrew Kim, a designer from Tesla, and Michael Schwekutsch, Tesla's drive systems expert, as well as Steve MacManus (car interiors/exteriors vice president).
