Apple continues to lure away talent form Tesla. The company’s Senior Designer Andrew Kim has started working for the Cupertino, California-based company.
His LinkedIn profile says that he joined the company this month, and his Instagram confirms that his first day working at Apple Park was last Tuesday.
His hiring and the news of Doug Field, Tesla’s chief vehicle engineer, returning to Apple (he was once vice president of Mac hardware) in August, expect rumors of a full-fledged Apple Car to regain momentum. Kim and Field aren’t the only Tesla employees to jump ship to Apple.
In 2016, the tech giant hired former Tesla’s vice president of Vehicle Engineering and former Aston Martin chief engineer, Chirs Porritt, to work on “special projects.” The same year Apple hired Tesla employee David Masiukiewicz, who joined the company as senior model maker at the company’s Product Realization Lab where Apple prototypes many of its products.
Keep in mind that Apple hasn’t officially confirmed any plans for an automobile. However, as I’ve said numerous times, I don’t think Apple will build a full-fledged car. Instead, I think it will work with current car manufacturers on hardware and software implementations. For example, the tech giant has signed a deal with Volkswagen to make self-driving cars after BMW and Mercedes-Benz reportedly rebuffed the tech giant’s requests to hand over control of the data and design of the planned cars.
