Apple Loses Key Autos Engineer To Electric Aviation Startup Archer

Michael Schwekutsch, a director of engineering in the Apple Special Projects Group that's reportedly working on self-driving cars, has left to join electric air taxi start-up Archer as its senior VP of engineering. Schwekutsch noted the change on his LinkedIn page on Wednesday. CNBC reports: The move is the latest example of staff turnover in Apple's secretive car project. Former VP of special projects Doug Field left in September to lead Ford's emerging technology efforts, a priority for the legacy automaker under its new Ford+ turnaround plan. The move also indicates that tech start-ups attacking climate issues can attract the most qualified engineers. A former VP of engineering at Tesla, Schwekutsch holds more than 100 patents related to vehicle design, worked on prototypes for the Tesla Plaid systems, and led production of electric drive systems for several vehicle models from Tesla, Porsche, BMW and others, according to his online resume.

Archer is working on electric-powered air taxis that take off and land vertically. Like competitors Lilium and Joby Aviation, Archer aims to transport passengers on short trips, avoiding traffic on the ground and the noise and emissions generated by traditional fuel-burning aircraft and cars. It's already developed a model known as the Maker that can carry one passenger and a pilot, and is working on a four-passenger model. The company aims to operate urban air mobility services starting in Los Angeles once its aircraft are cleared by the Federal Aviation Administration for commercial use. Founded in 2018 and based in Palo Alto, Calif., Archer went public in September after merging with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), Atlas Crest Investment Corp.

Break things and move fast

[Tablizer]

Apple probably doesn't want to "move fast and break things" because they want to be known as a high-end brand. But startups just want to be known. Michael just may want to push things faster.

Re:

[mbkennel]

I suspect it may be something else.

The Tim Cook Apple is going to let Foxconn design most of it and build all of it and the Apple engineers aren't going to get to do much other than software.

Re:

[Tablizer]

Software is the key part of bot-cars. Or do you mean Apple would be doing the UI and Foxconn would be doing the driving AI?

Re:

[NoMoreACs]

I suspect it may be something else.

The Tim Cook Apple is going to let Foxconn design most of it and build all of it and the Apple engineers aren't going to get to do much other than software.

Citation, please.

Re:

[timeOday]

Ha, you think Apple would punt to foxconn for the design of its own automobile? That's really hard to believe. Apple loves design. Maybe a little too much.

Re:

[aqui]

This is totally not news worthy. The fact that one engineer / manager changed jobs (even if its a good one) is 100% silicon valley "rockstar myth" bullsh!t.

Engineering a car takes hundreds of man years. While its true that good engineers and developers are getting better pay and have more mobility, its also true one guy won't make or break a company.

Apples Self driving car is like Blue Origin's New Glenn Rocket I'll believe its real when I see it on the road / launch pad. At the moment its just a bucket of

Re:

[JaredOfEuropa]

Depends. One engineer probably won't make a critical difference. But this guy is head of engineering. Having someone in that position with a good grasp of engineering, with the ability to tell good suggestions from bad ones, knowing when and where to (re-)allocate budget and effort, identify critical gaps and address them and so on, can make all the difference. In a company like Apple, there might be several people able to do that job well, and many more people with such a person in their external netwo

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

At this point the only company with any credibility on self driving vehicles is Waymo. They have a working system, operating in public without safety drivers. Everyone else is just doing stunts and public alpha testing.

Re:

[ceoyoyo]

Or he got an offer of a senior VP position and decided to leave his current director position for it.

avoiding the noise by traditional cars

[thesjaakspoiler]

LMFAO
Doesn't the PR manager have kids playing around with 50 gram drones?
Any idea how much sound a drone 10000 times the weight will produce?

Because Apple doesn't seem serious

[SuperKendall]

To me it's not much of a mystery why people are leaving, it's because Apple seem not serious, or at least not focused, on actually delivering a car anytime zoom.

Meanwhile at other companies (like Archer) you could be producing something in a matter of years, working on something real in a very fast paced development space while Apple just kind of plods along doing whatever.

Maybe it's going along at a faster pace internally, but we sure don't have any indications that is so.

I wish Apple luck, competition is

Air taxis are stupid

[backslashdot]

They already exist and are called helicopters. They work better, albeit slightly noisier (though even that might not be true.)

Flying cars though, actual flying cars that don't require a helipad, would be actually useful. A flying car is a vehicle that can fly and also be driven legally on most roads. Ideally, a flying car should fit in a parking spot. Air taxis require a helipad which is stupid because you can't have helipads all over a city. How do you get to your destination? Uber for another 15 mintues?

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Helicopters have serious reliability problems inherent to their design. Multicopters really don't.

Re: Air taxis are stupid

[backslashdot]

Really? Like what? Catastrophic rotor failure that cannot be recovered by autorotation? How often has that happened? If it was a thing, helicopters would have parachutes like the Cirrus Airframe Parachute.

Apple loses key automotive engineer

[mrchinnu]

Archer works on electric air taxis that take off and land vertically. Like its competitors Lilium and Joby Aviation, Archer aims to carry passengers on short trips, avoiding ground traffic as well as the noise and emissions generated by traditional fuel-powered planes and cars. She has already developed a model known as the Maker that can carry a passenger and a pilot, and is working on a four-passenger model. The company aims to operate urban air mobility services from Los Angeles once its planes have been

His mother always said

[Vegemeister]

Michael Schwekutsch could never stand to be part of any project with a chance of actually working.

Everybody is stealing each other's Engineers

[witz2]

Some years ago, I had this interview for a job, the guy was pretty much satisfied with my skills, but the main reason he asked me to jump in the boat was that I was working for a company who just stole one of his best guys. Quid-pro-Quo

My concerns about an Apple car

[jenningsthecat]

-- You crashed because you're holding the steering wheel wrong
-- It's only available in white
-- You can only use an Apple-approved adapter to connect to a charging station
-- You have to connect the radio speakers via Bluetooth or by plugging them into the charging connector, because "courage"
-- Tires and rims will be proprietary and available only from Apple, at stupidly high prices
-- The battery won't be replaceable - just buy a new car
-- Mandatory software updates will make older cars run slower

Need