Friday, December 13, 2024
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Apple lures away former Tesla engineer for its ‘Apple Car’ project

Let the Apple Car rumors roll on. Apple has hired Christopher “CJ” Moore, a former Tesla engineer, to work its “Apple Car” project, according to Bloomberg.

He’ll report to Stuart Bowers, another former Tesla executive who now works at Apple. Moore left Tesla in October after he made mainstream media headlines earlier this year for a comment regarding the current state of Full Self-Driving (FSD).

About CJ Moore

As noted by Drive Tesla Canada, in early March Tesla had a meeting with Miguel Acosta of the Autonomous Vehicles Branch of the California DMV to discuss the expansion of the FSD beta program to more testers.

During that meeting Moore was asked from an engineering perspective if CEO Elon Musk’s comments regarding Tesla being able to reach Level 5, or full autonomy, was accurate.

According to notes of the meeting, Moore responded by saying “Elon’s tweet does not match engineering reality.” Moore reportedly went on to add that they would need to see one to two million miles per driving interaction to move to higher levels of automation.

After his comments made headlines, he left Tesla.

When might we see an Apple Car?

The status of an Apple auto is unclear. On June 2, Bloomberg reported that Apple has lost “several” top managers from its “Apple Car” project. Here’s what the report says: Apple Inc. has lost multiple top managers of its self-driving car team in recent months, a sign of attrition at the division involved in what could become an important future product.

If an Apple Car ever arrives, it probably won’t arrive until 2024 at the earliest. In fact, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo doesn’t expect it until at least 2025.The accompanying graphic illustrates a vehicle comprising a transparent surface which provides an augmented reality display that modifies occupant-perceived information presented by a sign located in the external environment.

Dennis Sellers
the authorDennis Sellers
Dennis Sellers is the editor/publisher of Apple World Today. He’s been an “Apple journalist” since 1995 (starting with the first big Apple news site, MacCentral). He loves to read, run, play sports, and watch movies.