The Apple Car is still far from being announced, but rumors about it keep circulating on the web. This time, Bloomberg reports that Apple has lost another three engineers from its car project, who recently left the company to join startups.
One of the engineers who has left the Apple Car team is Eric Rogers, who worked as head of engineering for the car’s radar system. Rogers recently joined the flying-taxi startup Joby Aviation Inc. Alex Clarabut, another engineer who worked on the Apple Car’s batteries, has also left Apple to work for Joby Aviation Inc.
In addition to Rogers and Clarabut, Stephen Spiteri – another Apple engineer who previously worked on the Apple Car project – is also joining the same flying-taxi startup. Bloomberg points out that despite Apple’s efforts to build its own autonomous car, the challenges of the project have been bedeviling the company’s engineers.
The exodus shows the challenges Apple faces in expands into a new industry. A self-driving car could represent a massive new sales opportunity for the tech giant — one of its famous “next big things” — but perfecting such technology has bedeviled engineers for years. And the seven-year-old project has been marked by frequent turnover and strategy shifts, along with rivals poaching its talent.
This is not the first time that multiple employees working on the Apple Car project have left the company. Back in June, the Apple Car team lost several top managers, although the company is reportedly “actively recruiting” new people. More recently, Michael Schwekutsch – who left Tesla to join Apple in 2019 – has left the company to work for Archer.
Internally called “Project Titan,” Apple’s electric car is expected to have a fully autonomous driving system, but specific details about the car, such as its design, remain unknown.
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