Deng Simiao was sent from the Vice Pilot Temple
Smart car reference | Official account AI4Auto
The latest news from Apple Car:
Dig in a female executive who has worked at Ford for 31 years, Desi Ujkashevic, who was previously responsible for vehicle engineering and safety.
This is the latest personnel change development after the dissolution of apple car-making team, and the news came from Bloomberg.
After seven years of going around, this time, can Apple make a car to settle down?
And can Apple hand over the car-making answer sheet in 2025 as scheduled?
After 31 years at Ford, opting in to Apple?
Desi Ujkashevic, who came to Ford after graduating from college, worked there for 31 years.
Over the past 31 years, in a nutshell, she has been responsible for the engineering of interiors, exteriors, chassis and electrical components for many Ford models, such as the Ford Escape, Explorer, Fiesta and Focus models, as well as the Lincoln MKC and Aviator.
Specifically, look at the curriculum vitae:
He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1990 with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, and joined Ford in 1991 as a vehicle test engineer.
During his work, he received two master's degrees, namely the Master of Industry and Systems Engineering and the Master of Business Administration from the University of Michigan.
Later, from January 2000 to October 2011, he served as Ford's automotive process manager, chief engineer, and director of global design and technical operations in North America.
In October 2011, Ujkasevic came to Germany for three years as Ford's Regional Director for Europe, where he was responsible for interior, exterior and safety engineering, leading a team of nearly 1,000 people.
During these three years, in addition to being responsible for the delivery of product body works, he also managed Ford's global design studio, responsible for the design and technical operation of the car, with a team of nearly 800 people.
In September 2014, Ujkasevich returned to Michigan as Ford's global director of body and interior engineering, including cockpit, trim, seating, temperature, process, steering wheel and restraint engineering in the car, leading a team of more than 3,000 people and achieving a global turnover of $15 billion a year.
From December 2016 to March 2022, he served as Ford's Engineering Director for North America, where he was responsible for managing the entire engineering organization, including the exterior, interior, electrical, and chassis functions of the vehicle.
From all of the above points of view, we found that Ujkashević is more good at mass production of automobile hardware and vehicle research and development.
And previous news said that Apple is trying to develop a security redundancy system, more powerful than Tesla and Waymo. It is possible that Uikashevich will take over Jaime Waydo, who left last February, in charge of hardware-related work on autonomous driving safety.
There is no doubt that the vehicle manufacturing route of software and hardware integration, Apple has always been unshakable.
This is also the same as all of Apple's previous products.
Apple's car is speeding up again
Looking back at the history of Apple's car manufacturing, it can be said that the goal is unknown and the personnel are unclear.
In 2014, the Project Titan program began to surface.
Steve Zadesky, the first head, was previously Apple's vice president of product design and had worked for traditional car companies.
The goal at this time is to develop a car with advanced driver assistance functions, that is, the integration of software and hardware.
2016 was a turning point in history.
Project leader Zadesky left and was replaced by Bob Mansfield, but he preferred to "develop software and support solutions", so it was reported that the vehicle development plan had been cut.
At this time, the direction of Apple's car manufacturing has become the development of self-driving software and ecosystems.
In 2018, things changed again. This year, Doug Field, a former Tesla senior vice president of engineering who led model 3 mass production, joined Titan as the head, but he emphasized hardware mass production.
As a result, Apple returned to the route of vehicle manufacturing.
By September of last year, Doug Field had pulled out of Apple's car project and was replaced by Kevin Lynch, head of Apple Watch, as the car project manager.
However, Kevin Lynch has no experience in automotive companies, is not very good at hardware building of products, and has been responsible for software work in the past, and it is still unknown whether he left his job.
Ulrich Kranz, a former BMW manager and hardware giant who joined last June, is also unclear.
Last November, hardware engineer Michael Schwekutsch also quit Apple's car-making team to join Archer Aviation, a flying taxi startup.
In January, Joe Bass, head of software engineering projects for Apple's automotive team, left and joined Meta.
If analyst Ming-Chi Kuo's prediction is true, Apple's original car-making team was disbanded in March.
Well, the addition of the Ford female executive may be a new weather vane.
one more thing
Finally, it is worth mentioning the latest progress in the supply chain of Apple's car:
Apple is likely to entrust Hon Hai, that is, Foxconn, to be responsible for the assembly and production of the car, and the release of the Apple car will still be in 2025 or even the end of 2024.
Industry insiders said that Apple will not launch a mass-market electric vehicle, but will target the high-end market of more than $100,000 (equivalent to about 660,000 yuan) to benchmark Tesla's Model S.
What do you think? Are you optimistic about Apple's car project? If it was really for this price, would you buy it?
Feel free to leave a message in the comment area.
—Ends—
【Smart car reference】Original content, without the authorization of the account, is prohibited to be reproduced at will.
Click here to pay attention to me, remember the star, Mo Mo Da ~