ProjectTitan
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Apple details layoffs of 190 workers in its self-driving car division
After early confirmation, Apple is officially laying off workers in its self-driving car team. The company sent a letter to the California Employment Development Department warning that it would let go of 190 Project Titan members employees in Santa Clara and Sunnyvale. The move will take place April 16th and will mostly affect engineers, with 124 losing their positions.
Second Apple employee accused of stealing self-driving car tech
Apple is grappling with another employee accused of stealing autonomous vehicle trade secrets. NBC News has learned that the FBI arrested Jizhong Chen for allegedly trying to swipe self-driving car tech and pass it along to a Chinese competitor. After an employee saw him taking photos in a sensitive work area, the company conducted an investigation that discovered thousands of sensitive documents on his personal computer, including roughly a hundred photos from inside an Apple building. They also found that he'd recently applied to work at that competitor.
Apple lays off 200 employees working on self-driving cars
Apple's secretive self-driving car division, codenamed Project Titan, has undergone a major restructuring process under new leadership. Unfortunately, that entails dismissing over 200 employees this week, according to CNBC. An Apple spokesperson has confirmed the layoffs to the publication and also revealed that some employees previously under Titan have been transferred to other divisions.
Apple hires former Tesla and Microsoft senior designer
Apple has hired Andrew Kim, formerly of Tesla and Microsoft, to bolster its design team. Kim captured the attention of many in 2011 with a custom iOS device stand and again in 2012 when, as a fan, he shared his vision for an overhaul of Microsoft's branding and design language. He then joined Microsoft and helped design the Windows 10 UI along with HoloLens and Xbox One S, he writes on his LinkedIn profile, before moving to Tesla.
Apple reports its first self-driving car crash
Apple has been keeping most of its self-driving car plans and progress under wraps, but every once in a while, we get a small peek at what the tech giant has been doing. It has revealed in a DMV filing, for instance, that one of its autonomous vehicles was recently involved in a crash in the Bay Area -- and it was caused by human error. According to the document, an Apple test vehicle driving in autonomous mode on August 24th (2:58PM) was rear-ended by a 2016 Nissan Leaf. It happened while the test vehicle was waiting for a safe gap to merge onto the notoriously congested Lawrence Expressway. Apple's car was driving at less than 1 mph, while the Nissan Leaf was moving at around 15 mph.
Former Tesla engineering lead Doug Field is back with Apple
Tesla confirmed in July that instead of returning from a six-week break, senior engineering VP Doug Field had departed the company. The timing was interesting as it came during Tesla's push to ramp up production of the Model 3 sedan, which was the kind of issue we'd expected Field to address after he joined in 2013. Whatever the reasons for his split from Tesla, Daring Fireball writer John Gruber has confirmed with Apple PR that Field is back with the company he left five years ago. Going a step further, Gruber said that he has heard from sources that instead of returning to Mac engineering, Field is working on Apple's rebooted Project Titan vehicle team -- a move that could suggest it has bigger plans than just an add-on self-driving car kit. Normally, we'd be on alert for a snarky tweet or two from Elon Musk about the shift (three years ago he told a German paper "If you don't make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple" before apologizing) but he might be distracted by the SEC at the moment.
NYT: Apple teams up with VW for self-driving shuttle vans
Apple's Project Titan efforts to develop self-driving car technology apparently have found a partner in Volkswagen, according to a report by the New York Times. While the paper said the tech company has pursued deals with BMW and Mercedes, it will apparently turn VW T6 Transporter vans into self-driving shuttles for employees moving between its Silicon Valley offices. We've seen some test SUVs out and about before, but Apple has had bigger plans for the project and a reported 2019 target date, so getting more vehicles on the road will be important. Now the Times says the project is behind schedule, and there's no mention of angles like electric propulsion or spherical tires. As for the competition, Waymo has continued to expand with new partners and plans to roll out an autonomous service in the near future, while Uber has suspended its efforts in Arizona after a fatal crash and Elon Musk is busy arguing with reporters over what is or isn't news. And now it's time to find out what Apple can do.
Apple added two dozen self-driving SUVs to its California test fleet
Last April, Apple was granted a permit to test its autonomous vehicle technology by the state of California and since then, the company has expanded its test fleet from three vehicles to 27, Bloomberg reports. The California Department of Motor Vehicles said that Apple had registered 24 Lexus RX450h SUVs between last July and this month. While initially aiming to develop its own autonomous vehicle, Apple later decided to switch gears and design a self-driving system that could be incorporated into other vehicles. And we've seen glimpses of that technology in recent months. A patent application, a presentation from Apple AI Research Director Ruslan Salakhutdinov and a research paper have all pulled back parts of the curtain Apple's technology development usually hides behind. And a closeup look from Voyage cofounder MacCallister Higgins gave us a bit of a visual.
Apple’s self-driving tech appears to be one fully-contained unit
Like so many companies, Apple has been working on its own version of self-driving technology. Last year, we learned that the company had moved away from designing its own vehicle, opting instead to develop a system that could be incorporated into existing vehicles. We've had glimpses of this system before -- it's codenamed Project Titan -- but thanks to Voyage cofounder MacCallister Higgins, we now have an up-close view of it.
Tim Cook says Apple is working on 'autonomous systems'
Has Tim Cook made the first public admission that Apple is indeed working on self-driving car technology? Bloomberg seems to think so, based on comments made by the CEO in an interview at WWDC earlier this month. After remarking on the exciting automotive trends of self-driving cars, EVs and ride-sharing, Cook said: "What we're focusing on -- what we've talked about focusing on publicly -- is we're focusing on autonomous systems. And clearly one purpose of autonomous systems is self-driving cars. There are others, and we sorta see it as the mother of all AI projects. It's probably one of the most difficult AI projects, actually, to work on. And so autonomy is something that's incredible exciting for us, but we'll see where it takes us."
Take a look at Apple's self-driving test vehicle
Photos obtained by Bloomberg are giving us our first look at what appears to be a testbed for Apple's self-driving car technology. An observer caught the Lexus SUV (looking similar to the demo vehicle above) rolling out of an Apple facility in Silicon Valley, rocking an extensive kit including Velodyne LiDAR units and radar sensors, which help the car observe the world around it. Apple picked up a permit to test its autonomous technology on California streets a couple of weeks ago, and it apparently isn't waiting to get started.
Apple letter offers a clue to its self-driving car plans
Apple's hopes of developing self-driving car technology have been a poorly kept secret for a while, and now it's coming clean. The company has sent a letter to the US' National Highway Traffic Safety Administration acknowledging that the company is "excited" about automation in numerous fields, "including transportation." It wants to test self-driving car tech, and it's hoping to address both ethical and regulatory issues. It believes the industry should share crash (and near-crash) data to improve safety, for example, but this "should not come at the cost of privacy."
Apple chose BlackBerry's 'hood for its car OS project
Apple may have put the brakes on plans to build its own self-driving car, but the company's plug-and-play, self-driving operating system is still moving forward, even if the team has been scaled back. According to a new report from Bloomberg, what's left of Project Titan is coming together at Apple's Canadian office in the Ottawa suburb of Kanata, using a big team of engineers poached from BlackBerry's automotive software division QNX.
Bloomberg: Apple isn't building a car anymore
Remember Apple's ambitious, long-rumored and totally not top-secret plan to build a self-driving car for the masses? According to Bloomberg, it's dead, with several hundred employees being reassigned to other parts of the company's business. The project, codenamed Titan, has been scaled back from a full-blown vehicle to simply a self-driving system that can be sold to car makers for use in their own vehicles. It gets worse, since Titan's leaders have been told that their team needs to produce something feasible before the end of 2017, or else.
Would Apple really buy supercar maker McLaren? (update: Lit Motors too)
Apple's automotive plans might not be as grand as they used to be, but that isn't ruling out some bold moves. Financial Times sources claim that Apple is considering a major stake in supercar maker McLaren, whether it's a "strategic investment" or a full-blown acquisition. It's not certain what Apple's exact strategy would be with this deal, but it's reportedly eyeing McLaren for its engineering talent, technology and patents. And while there's no guarantee that the talks will lead anywhere, the tipsters say they started several months ago -- this isn't just a casual fling, if true.
NYT: Apple car 'reboot' involves dozens of layoffs
The latest rumor surrounding Apple's fabled Project Titan car comes from the New York Times, which reports "dozens" of layoffs as parts of the initiative have been shut down. This follows an earlier Bloomberg report that under new leadership by Bob Mansfield, the focus has changed from building an entire car, to focusing on developing self-driving car tech. According to the NYT, the layoffs were described internally as being part of a reboot, while Apple figures out what it can bring to a self-driving car that will stick out (probably not an AUX cable).
Apple brings on new talent for autonomous car initiative
Apple has brought on the former head of BlackBerry's automotive software division to lead its self-driving car tech projects.
Apple picks a well-known executive to lead its electric car team
There's been a lot of talk about Apple's not-so-secret Project Titan electric car project, but... who runs it? We now have an idea. Wall Street Journal sources understand that Apple has picked Bob Mansfield, one of the company's better-known executives, to helm its EV efforts. He'd effectively left the company in 2013 and only made a partial return after Apple scrambled to keep him (the Apple Watch is partly his baby), but he's reportedly back in the swing of things now that Titan is ramping up -- all senior managers in the car initiative have to report to him.
Apple reportedly looks into making electric car charging stations
Any electric car maker worth its salt knows that their vehicles are only as good as the charging stations that keep them running... and that includes Apple, apparently. Reuters sources understand that Apple is asking charging station manufacturers about their technology for the sake of its oft-rumored electric car project. It's not certain how deep the talks go or who's involved (the companies certainly aren't talking). However, NRG Energy issued a vague response noting that it's talking to "every potential manufacturer of tomorrow." We wouldn't rule it out, then.
Apple reportedly hires former Tesla engineering VP
Apple and Tesla have been known to swap employees on the regular, especially with development for Project Titan ramping up in Cupertino. It seems Tim Cook & Co. are it again, this time reportedly nabbing former Tesla VP of Vehicle Engineering Chris Porritt to work on "special projects." It's pretty easy to connect the dots between hiring an auto engineer an Apple's own car aspirations. Electrek reports that Porritt is the latest former Tesla employee to make the leap to Apple, filling a senior position with someone who has experience with EVs and served as Aston Martin's chief engineer.
