Written by / Ma Xiaolei
Editor/ Zhang Linyu
Design / Shi Yuchao
Source/Bloomberg By Mark Gurman
Apple's work on self-driving cars is about to enter its eighth year. 2022 may be the most critical year for the project, the year that will determine the success or failure of Apple's car project.
The original iPhone was studied in the lab for about three years before it entered the market. The development time of the first iPad and Apple Watch was about that long.
Apple's upcoming mixed reality headset has been in development since around 2016. If all goes well, it will be launched sometime in 2022, after 6 years in development.
All of these new products have been relatively stable in leadership during their conception. But Apple's leadership has been shuffling. In order to achieve the goal of fully autonomous driving, the project needs to hire and retain the right people.
The Apple Car project was launched in 2014 under former Ford engineer Steve Zadesky, who was director of the iPhone and iPod.
Later, the project was run by former hardware head Dan Riccio, followed by Bob Mansfield and former Tesla High Pipe Doug Field. Mansfield retired in 2020, and Field left Apple to join Ford in September 2021.
After Field left the company, the leadership of the project fell into the hands of Kevin Lynch. Unlike the four previous leaders, Lynch has neither the expertise of hardware leadership nor the historical experience of the automotive sector.
His experience is limited to software, and Lynch has transformed the Apple Watch from a product with no clear purpose into an indispensable device for millions of users to receive messages and health monitoring.
Software is at the heart of Apple Cars in at least two ways: the underlying self-driving software that powers the car, and, as with all Apple products, users will use Apple's operating system to operate the car.
When Lynch took office, he laid out a new and unique direction for the project: a fully autonomous car, removing the steering wheel and pedals for a sedan-like experience. He also pushed a development team called the Special Projects Group to pick up the pace of work toward launching the car as early as 2025.
Now that Lynch has made clear what he wants for the project, he and Apple must execute on that vision. In addition to perfecting the technology, the biggest challenge is how to retain talent and make this car a reality.
In terms of title, Field is the highest-ranking departureer in the Apple automotive team in 2021, but in addition to him, there are many senior leaders who have left. The wave of departures in early 2021 began with four of the company's top Apple auto leaders, all of whom reported to Field: Dave Scott, Jaime Waydo, Dave Rosenthal and Benjamin Lyon.
After Field switched to Ford, Michael Schwekutsch, who was in charge of hardware for Apple's project, soon joined in.
It's not just top management who resigns. Recently, at least three key engineers working on battery technology, drivetrains, and autonomous driving sensors left. Some former Apple employees have joined the flying taxi startup.
The year ahead will be a decisive year for Apple. While it has a beautiful vision, it needs to hire and retain the right people to make it all work smoothly.
If it can't figure out how to do this a year from now under its fifth head of Apple's automotive lead, perhaps it should rethink the viability of the project, or simply put nearly $200 billion in cash to buy up some new eviction startups to realize its vision of autonomous driving.