Apple’s car project loses another executive, the former head of Tesla’s Autopilot

Apple announced that Christopher “CJ” Moore, a former Tesla self-driving software Autopilot engineer who joined Apple’s car project last year, has left Apple to join Orlando, Florida. LiDAR company Luminar, as the new head of the software division.

According to reports, Luminar mainly produces glasses (laser sensors) for self-driving cars, but Moore’s departure shows that although the tech giant is struggling to retain talent to complete the self-driving car project known as Project Titan (Project Titan), but seems to be in a predicament.

“We’re attracting the world’s best leaders in every field to execute our vision and realize the future of transportation,” Luminar CEO Austin Russell said in a statement. An Apple spokesperson There was no immediate response to a request for comment.

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The departure is the latest personnel shake-up in Apple’s automotive division, which has undergone numerous changes over the past few years.

Last year, the project leader, Doug Field, left Apple to join Ford. He was later named head of digital systems for Ford’s new Model E electric and autonomous vehicle division. Kevin Lynch, formerly CTO at Adobe, has been named Field’s successor.

A few weeks later, in November 2021, Moore left Tesla to join Apple, working on Autopilot software, reporting to another Tesla ex-pat, Stuart Bowers, who Previously served as Vice President of Engineering.

Although Apple’s car project started in 2014, as it stands, its self-driving car development is still in the early stages. Apple has also previously said that it only intends to develop self-driving software for use by other automakers, not full vehicles.

Last year, Bloomberg reported that Apple had completed “most of the key development work” on a new processor intended for use in its self-driving trams. The company is reportedly accelerating the timeline for the self-driving car it is developing, with a new goal of launching the car in as little as four years. Project Titan now aims to build a self-driving car without a steering wheel.

Russell, the CEO of Luminar, is very young, and he is skeptical of Musk’s self-declaration. In an interview with The Verge last year, Russell called Tesla’s advanced driver-assistance system “the best in its class,” but argued that the company had mistakenly called the latest version of Autopilot as “best in class.” “Fully autonomous driving”, which “digs a very deep hole for itself”. Russell also called himself the “chief autonomous industry skeptic.”

However, there are rumors that Luminar has a partnership with Tesla, although Musk has often ridiculed lidar before and laid a “pure vision solution” for his own FSD. He believes that radar is like a “crutch” and is a kind of “stupid thing”.

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