The Apple Car project continues to shed engineers, reports Bloomberg. Over the last several weeks, three key engineers have departed the company.
Apple’s chief engineer for radar systems, Eric Rogers, left for Joby Aviation, a company working on electric aerial ridesharing. Meanwhile, Alex Clarabut, an engineering manager for the battery team, and Stephen Spiteri, a hardware engineering manager, both joined Archer Aviation, a company that is developing an air taxi.
The departures are just the latest in a series of exits for the Apple Car project. Earlier this month, Apple Car engineering director Michael Schwekutsch left the project for Archer Aviation. We also saw Apple Car project lead Doug Field leave Apple for Ford back in September. Field spent three years heading up Apple Car development.
While Apple has lost six key members of the project’s management team during 2021, it has also scored new hires like Ulrich Kranz, former CEO of self-driving startup Canoo, as well as CJ Moore, who worked at Tesla on self-driving software.
With Field’s departure, Apple brought on Apple Watch chief Kevin Lynch to work on the Apple Car, and he is working alongside AI chief John Giannandrea.
Apple is hoping to release a self-driving car by 2025.