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Latest news on Apple’s car making:

Apple has poached Desi Ujkashevic, a female executive who has worked at Ford for 31 years and has been responsible for vehicle engineering and safety issues.

This is the latest personnel change in the Apple car making team after the news of its dissolution, and the information comes from Bloomberg.

After seven years of twists and turns, can Apple’s car making team be sure this time?

Can Apple deliver its car making answer in 2025 as scheduled?

After working at Ford for 31 years, why did she choose to join Apple?

Desi Ujkashevic graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1990 and has been working at Ford for 31 years.

Over the past 31 years, she has been responsible for engineering design of the interiors, exteriors, chassis and electrical components of many Ford models, such as Ford Escape, Explorer, Fiesta and Focus models, as well as Lincoln MKC and Aviator.

Specifically, her resume is as follows:

In 1991, she joined Ford to work as a vehicle testing engineer after graduating from University of Michigan.

During her work, she obtained two master’s degrees in Industrial and Systems Engineering and Business Administration from the University of Michigan.

From January 2000 to October 2011, she successively served as automobile process manager, chief engineer of Ford North America, and director of global design and technical operations.

In October 2011, Ujkashevic spent three years in Germany and served as the director of Ford Europe, mainly responsible for the internal and external body and safety engineering of the car, leading a team of nearly 1,000 people.

During these three years, she was not only responsible for the delivery of the car body engineering of the products but also managed Ford’s global design studio, which was responsible for the design and technical operations of the car. The team had nearly 800 people.

In September 2014, Ujkashevic returned to Michigan, USA, and served as the global director of body and interior engineering at Ford, mainly including the driving cockpit, interior decoration, seats, temperature, technology, steering wheel, and restraining engineering. The team she led had more than 3,000 people and a global turnover of $15 billion in a year.From December 2016 to March 2022, I served as the director of engineering projects for Ford’s North American region, responsible for managing the entire engineering organization, including the exterior, interior, electrical, and chassis functions of the car.

From all of the above, we can see that Uygar Sahin is more adept at hardware production of cars and the research and development of cars as a whole.

It was also previously reported that Apple is trying to develop a safety redundancy system that is even more powerful than Tesla and Waymo. Uygar Sahin may be replacing Jaime Waydo, who left in February last year, responsible for hardware-related work on autonomous driving safety.

Without a doubt, Apple has always been unwavering in its route of making whole cars with integrated hardware and software, just like all its previous products.

Apple’s car-making speeds up again

Looking back at the process of Apple’s car-making, it can be said that the goal was unclear and the personnel were unclear.

In 2014, the “Titan” (Project Titan) plan began to gradually surface.

The first project leader, Steve Zadesky, previously served as Apple’s vice president of product design and had working experience in traditional car companies.

At this point, the goal was to develop a car with advanced driver assistance functions, that is, hardware and software were integrated.

In 2016, it was a turning point in history.

Project leader Zadesky resigned, and Bob Mansfield took over, but he was more inclined to “develop software and support solutions”, so there were reports that the whole vehicle development plan had been cut.

At this point, Apple’s car-making direction changed to the development of autonomous driving software and ecosystem.

In 2018, the situation changed again. Former senior vice president of engineering at Tesla who led the production of Model 3, Doug Field, joined Titan as the leader, but he emphasized hardware production.

So, Apple returned to the route of making whole cars.

Last September, Doug Field withdrew from Apple’s car-making project, and Kevin Lynch, responsible for the Apple Watch, took over as the automotive project manager.

However, Kevin Lynch, who has no experience in the automotive industry, is not very good at hardware development. His previous work mainly focused on software. It is currently unknown whether he has resigned.

Ulrich Kranz, the former BMW manager and hardware expert who joined in June last year, is also unclear about his whereabouts.

In November last year, hardware engineer Michael Schwekutsch also left Apple’s car team and joined a startup company called Archer Aviation, which is developing flying taxis.

In January this year, Joe Bass, the software engineering project leader of Apple’s car team, resigned and joined Meta.

If analyst Ming-Chi Kuo’s prediction is true, Apple’s original car team disbanded in March this year.

So, the addition of this Ford female executive may be a new indicator.

one more thing

Finally, it is worth mentioning the latest developments in Apple’s car supply chain:

Apple is very likely to entrust Foxconn (also known as Hon Hai) to be responsible for the assembly and production of its cars, and the release of Apple’s car will still be in 2025 or even the end of 2024.

Insiders say that Apple will not launch electric cars for the mass market, but will target the high-end market above $100,000, targeting Tesla’s Model S.

So, do you think Apple’s car project has potential? Will you buy it at this price if it is true?

Leave a comment in the comment section below.

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This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.