Apple Loses Multiple Top Managers From Self-Driving Car Division (bloomberg.com) 54
Apple 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. From a report: The iPhone maker has hundreds of engineers working on underlying self-driving car technology as well as groups of employees working on an actual vehicle, Bloomberg News has reported. Running the division is Doug Field, a former top vehicle engineer for Tesla, along with a management team of fewer than a dozen executives. At least three members of that Apple car management team have departed this year.
In recent days, Dave Scott, who led teams working on robotics related to the car, left to become the chief executive officer at Hyperfine, a health care company developing next-generation MRI systems. Before Scott's departure, Jaime Waydo, who led autonomous car safety and regulation teams, departed to become the chief technology officer at Cavnue, a startup focused on the safety of autonomous cars on public roads. In February, Benjamin Lyon, who helped create Apple's original car team several years ago and was key in the future project's development, left to become the chief engineer at Astra, a company developing technology for sending satellites to space.
In recent days, Dave Scott, who led teams working on robotics related to the car, left to become the chief executive officer at Hyperfine, a health care company developing next-generation MRI systems. Before Scott's departure, Jaime Waydo, who led autonomous car safety and regulation teams, departed to become the chief technology officer at Cavnue, a startup focused on the safety of autonomous cars on public roads. In February, Benjamin Lyon, who helped create Apple's original car team several years ago and was key in the future project's development, left to become the chief engineer at Astra, a company developing technology for sending satellites to space.
Google Is Waiting ... (Score:1, Troll)
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Re: Google Is Waiting ... (Score:1)
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I can only half agree with you here. I think you're particularly spot-on in regards to Apple being in an unusual place since they missed the boat on buying Tesla, but imho Apple seems better aligned for building and operating a private mass transit system. Instead of buying an Apple car for themselves, Apple transit system users would call upon a vehicle for a custom A to B travel itinerary, similar to Lyft/Uber. That allows Apple to maintain ownership of the vehicles, which I'd bet they prefer. At best you
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Re: Google Is Waiting ... (Score:3)
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I don't know about continual improvements in Tesla's case.
I was sitting today at a stoplight behind a brand new Tesla Model X and couldn't not notice how the gap between the hatch and the body was maybe 1/8 of an inch on the left side and almost 1/2" on the right side...
Not even early Kias had such a bad body fitting.
Re: Google Is Waiting ... (Score:2)
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It's a bigger issue in the luxury range where rich assholes will have high expectations for their money, but at all price ranges it's an outward "symbol" of the vehicles general build quality: Fairly or unfairly. Teslas do have crappy body panel tolerances, but I'm not seeing them broken down all over.
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The panels fitting is a visible aspect of the quality of assembly.
If an issue that has been largely resolved by the industry decades ago is still present in this luxury segment (Model X *is* a luxury car), then I'm wondering what other build quality issues they may have in areas that are not visible...
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I still think it makes no sense for Apple to enter the car business. Computers, tablets, phones, watches, home automation. Sure, it's all things that are computers first. But cars are not computers and the markets are so completely different that I'm still in shock that they tried to do it in the first place.
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They're probably interested in developing the tech and then licensing it, or partnering with established players for production.
Re: Google Is Waiting ... (Score:2)
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But Apple doesn't need to design a whole car for that, they should be working on pushing CarPlay integration and even making Apple-branded automotive head units ("infotainment systems") that can fit in "regular head unit bays", although I have no idea if this is a dying market or not.
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That means that we're probably going to wait awhile. Apple usually waits for Microsoft to launch a product first (like a tablet or a smartphone), makes it easier to use, and ships their own more expensive version.
Microsoft doesn't seem to be in the self-driving car game, so now we're going to have to wait a long time.
how important is market? who pays for insurance? (Score:2)
Going somewhat OT, couple lectures on CSPAN, one mentioned he doesn't think self driving cars will take hold because the car is one thing the American has control. This was a lecture including rebellious drivers portrayed in American Graffiti and Smokey and the Bandit. He or she may be just a cog at a job but has full control of a complex machine when driving it. Those iconic movies would never work if the vehicles were self driving.
Another lecturer mentions he doesn't think self driving cars will ever wo
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Movies and video games and books and music, etc with us winning over the bad guys. That's our symbolism for just how bad ass we are, and how righteous our cause.
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It's not all-or-nothing. For one, there are elderly and disabled who otherwise can't drive. Also, many in the younger generation haven't bothered to get a drivers license. They'd rather surf the web while a bot drives. Further, automated delivery vehicles would save co's big bucks. Thus, it's pushed by profits, and Profit is the Prophet in the USA.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Re:how important is market? who pays for insurance (Score:5, Insightful)
Another lecturer mentions he doesn't think self driving cars will ever work unless the manufacturer pays for the insurance
I think the person is right to a point, but it does stop somewhere.
Autonomous vehicles aren't going to be a "for the public" at first kind of thing. I mean that would be suicide if it was. I think we're going to see commercial vehicles, service vehicles, and so on go the route of autonomous first. And the "bugs" to be worked out go from there. With them being limited to commercial vehicles at first, the manufacturer paying the insurance makes a bit more economic sense. Fleets can be group insured, there's tighter quality control, and so on.
I think once we have a very clean record of commercial vehicles AND a bit more regulation in regards to autonomous vehicles, we'll start seeing personal vehicles and it'll make sense for the insurance to be on the owner and not the maker. There's all kinds of planes that have all kinds of auto-pilots and what not and yet the insurance is still the onus of the owner. I foresee that being the case, WAY WAY WAY down the road for autonomous vehicles. But I absolutely agree with the person that "at first" the manufacturer will need to carry the insurance. And perhaps as the technology begins to bleed into everyday people, it'll be a more joint owner/maker kind of insurance.
one mentioned he doesn't think self driving cars will take hold because the car is one thing the American has control
Yeah I don't see that mindset holding up over time. Driving today is a lot different than what driving thirty/forty years ago was like. There's just objectively way more people on the roads. American Graffiti mentality is a dying breed. And as more and more people hit the streets, there's just going to be less and less "rebellious" driving going on and more "I just need to f****ng get to work" driving. The roads, every road, is just so clogged today, driving as a past time just sounds like something someone would do because they're a masochist. Driving is just absolutely unpleasant today and it's only expected to get even worse as the years roll by.
Why would I want such a car? (Score:2)
I would much rather do something while the car drives me since most of us get tied down to a location and then have to commute to another location. Even if you manage to work at home longer than time that was attempted (remember?) then you only need a car even less!
It makes no sense to OWN a self-driving car that spends 90+% of it's time PARKED. Keep in mind, you pay the same insurance if you drive it all day or leave it parked. It can drive itself so it should be making me money when I'm not using it. Bu
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I would much rather do something while the car drives me since most of us get tied down to a location and then have to commute to another location.
As opposed to being tied down in your car while BDSM is being performed on you. You can't get that experience in a regular vehicle.
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There's all kinds of planes that have all kinds of auto-pilots and what not and yet the insurance is still the onus of the owner.
Your analysis is very interesting, but I think this analogy doesn't hold
Auto-pilot is probably closer to cruise-control on the cars. It is only at fault if it screws up. But if something unexpected happens, I assume auto-pilot would not be responsible. So if a piece of debris hits your engine, would anyone expect the auto-pilot to handle it?
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Autonomous vehicles aren't going to be a "for the public" at first kind of thing.
Come to think of it, reading a recent article about a self driving truck got across the country 10 hours less than if a human drove it (I didn't read entire article). You do bring up something insightful as many commercial/fleet vehicles that typically perform same routes that can be better predicted. We're nowhere near adopting self-driving cars to random driving by who-ever of when-ever to where-ever.
Driving today is a lot different than what driving thirty/forty years ago was like. There's just objectively way more people on the roads. American Graffiti mentality is a dying breed.
Yes, I had that feeling myself. I remember back in 1970s I was so impatient to get my DL and a car. Some o
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Autonomous vehicles aren't going to be a "for the public" at first kind of thing. I mean that would be suicide if it was. I think we're going to see commercial vehicles, service vehicles, and so on go the route of autonomous first. And the "bugs" to be worked out go from there. With them being limited to commercial vehicles at first, the manufacturer paying the insurance makes a bit more economic sense. Fleets can be group insured, there's tighter quality control, and so on.
Actually commercial vehicles on the road will be the last place for them due to the insane amount of liability involved.
They aren't going to be in the hands of average drivers soon either because the technology is nowhere near good enough.
As for insurance, that question has already been answered, financial liability is the same as legal liability (I.E. when a law is broken), the owner of the car will be liable. As with other manufacturing defects, that needs to be demonstrated rather than assumed. So-called
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Another lecturer mentions he doesn't think self driving cars will ever work unless the manufacturer pays for the insurance.
This one isn't correct. The biggest reason for car accidents - And resulting large insurance payouts - Is human drivers doing stupid things.
Take the humans out of the equation and insurance claims would plummet.
I would bet eventually you'd see a scenario where self-driving cars are much cheaper to insure than human-driven cars.
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couple lectures on CSPAN, one mentioned he doesn't think self driving cars will take hold because the car is one thing the American has control.
The idea of car ownership as a rite of passage is antiquated and has quickly been fading from American culture. The number of 16 year-olds with licenses has fallen from about 1/2 to 1/4 [theatlantic.com] in the 35 years from 1983-2017, with steadily shrinking declines as you look at each of the older cohorts (i.e. 21% drop for 19 year olds, 16% for 20-24, 11% for 25-29, and so on, all the way through Gen X), suggesting this decline is growing with time and likely hasn't peaked yet. People are getting their drivers licenses l
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I could probably count on one hand how many times I drove our family vehicles during my high school years [...]
I assume you didn't do much for "chores" around the house, either.
This has changed somewhat from when I was a kid (and dinosaurs ruled the earth), but in my youth you got your driver's license in order to help out. If you had younger siblings, you now had take them to things and pick them up rather than Mom or Dad running the taxi service. If an errand had to be run, you got to do it--gas for the mower, food for dinner, drop off something, etc.
I'd also think that it depends on where you live. Yeah, you c
Re:how important is market? who pays for insuran (Score:2)
I assume you didn't do much for "chores" around the house, either.
You assume incorrectly. I did the usual stuff you’d hope and expect from a responsible teen: I collected garbage from all the bins in the house to take to the cans, took it all out to the curb each week, mowed the lawn and did the other lawn maintenance, did the dishes, repaired sprinklers, etc..
What you said about helping out was true of us as well, but the opportunities just weren’t there, hence my objections. I had typed up a bit where I mentioned that me driving to school wasn’t possib
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Actually, another interesting thing is that licenses are a lot less useful now-a-days than when I was a kid...
When I got my license at 16, I had the same rights and responsibilities as any other person with a driver's license. Now-a-days, you get a "provisional" license that means you can only drive during the day with a person over 25 in the car and/or you cannot carry passengers. So it makes getting a license much less useful.
My favorite license story, though, happened about 3 months after I got it. In
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And how big a percentage of drivers today are like that?
I mean, we have laws banning cellphone use in cars in most places now, yet how many times today do you see people on their phones? Or doing something else? It's illegal, yet people s
False alarm. (Score:2)
Well per previous slashdot commentary management isn't important. It's the engineers we need to worry about.
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Mod the parent up.
Sure, executives leaving isn't always a good sign. But, remember, these executives are leaving a company will $billions in the bank and $billions more in credit and headed to companies with less certain futures on similarly-risky problems. (OK, the MRI departure is not too risky...)
1/4 departures for an up-and-coming project doesn't spell doom. The product is - so far - not even completed by those who have years in the market (Tesla, Waymo). Early departures should be considered a good thi
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losing them too, in accidents.
Hahahaha!
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Lots of us had the same question when Waymo CEO John Krafcik recently left.
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Well per previous slashdot commentary management isn't important. It's the engineers we need to worry about.
Agreed. Losing managers is fine... losing actual workers would be a problem.
Apple "car" has been frought (Score:2)
I think with the hype that surrounds autonomous vehicles and the reality of them are something that can drive eager people to leave. The whole fully autonomous thing isn't happening anytime soon, but there's a lot of names who are getting into it thinking, "I'll bring the thing that'll push us past the line" only to find "gee this is a lot harder than I thought." At the same time, the pressure from above is just... unmanageable to say the least. Apple is trying to extend their wares and they've picked au
apple will want 30% of each toll to paid how far? (Score:2)
apple will want 30% of each toll to paid how far can they get with that idea? I don't think that any toll way will give apple any % of an toll.
Did Apple really *lose* them? (Score:2)
Or did they just let them go? Think different! /s
writing on the wall (Score:3)
These guys are not stupid.
1. The robot car space is overpopulated.
2. PR notwithstanding, it will take decades to realistically bring it to market, by which time Apple will have moved on to greener pastures and dumped these guys anyway.
Great, A fucking paywall (Score:2)
If Bloomberg doesn't want to put things behind a paywall, they can take it off the internet and hide it in some shit apps.
Autonomous and electric cars is hard (Score:2)
Just saying.
Astra (Score:2)
[...] Astra, a company developing technology for sending satellites to space.
Whoa! You mean...rockets?
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Lost? (Score:2)
Did they look under the sofa, or between the cushions?
Rats leaving the sinking ship (Score:2)
Make some money, get the Apple halo and jump ship before the failure of self driving drags you down. The ones changing fields are the smart ones.