Apple has never discussed its plans about electric cars or self-driving software, but it is reportedly quietly building a team. There are reports that it has now hired a former Autopilot software engineer Tesla. Sources privy with the development said that Christopher “CJ” Moore will be working on the self-driving software of the tech giant. Moore is also expected to work on software for Apple. He will be reporting to Stuart Bowers, another Tesla employee. Bowers was vice president of engineering during his tenure with Elon Musk’s company. Moore has been director of Autopilot Software of Tesla since 2019. He has been working with the company since 2014.
It must be noted that Moore has stirred a huge controversy during his tenure with Tesla by calling the company’s chief executive officer Elon Musk’s “full self-driving” claims an exaggeration. In January this year, Musk had said that he’s confident that Tesla’s cars will be able to drive themselves with reliability. However, the self-driving software provided by the company is currently in beta. Moreover, it does not make Tesla vehicles fully autonomous. This is because a driver is required to keep control of the vehicle at all times. Moore explained it saying that autonomy is Level 2 which means it will require supervision from a human.
Moore explained that fully autonomous will mean Level 5. Moore has since been appearing as a witness in the case against Tesla in which a vehicle of the company had left two people dead. Initially, there were reports that suggested no one was present in the driver’s seat. However, a report by the National Transportation Safety Board last month said that it found during the investigation that the driver’s seat was occupied during the incident. Meanwhile, Tesla has not spoken a word on its car project, which has been reportedly codenamed, Titan. However, it is well known that the company has been quietly hiring EV experts. Most of them are from Tesla.
