As Apple’s automated-driving program gains momentum, the company has been able to woo seven engineers away from vaunted electric-car maker Tesla.
Reuters reported the story yesterday, leading their coverage of the Tesla departures with the news that a senior engineer switched teams. The story went on to note that the information was acquired through job updates posted on LinkedIn, and that seven Tesla employees’ job titles changed from Tesla to Apple.
The number may not be limited to seven employees, either. There could be more, but reports have yet to reveal additional movement.
Apple’s string of Tesla hires comes on the heels of a series of high-profile hires for their automated-driving project.
Other Appleites include former Volkswagen engineer Megan McClain and Carnegie Mellon University graduate researcher Vinay Palakkode.
The company also managed to lure Paul Furgale away from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology’s Autonomous Systems Lab.
According to Apple Insider, the name of the automated driving initiative is called “Project Titan” and, despite efforts to remain out of the public eye, has been revealed in bits in pieces by various news outlets including the U.K.’s The Guardian.
Apple Insider conducted their own investigation of Apple’s Titan “secret facility.”
An AppleInsider investigation conducted earlier this year revealed that Apple has a secret facility in Sunnyvale, Calif. The automotive project is said to be shrouded in secrecy inside a top-secret building code-named SG5.
Elon Musk has openly acknowledged that Apple has been trying to poach Tesla engineers. On one occasion, he was seen in conversation with Apple design boss Jony Ive at an Oscars afterparty.
Musk was quoted as saying that his company has poached five times the amount of employees from Apple that Apple has poached from Musk’s stable of engineers.
There is no word as to when Apple’s automated cars may hit the market.