Zadesky's resignation isn't the only challenge facing the Apple Car
After the close of the markets last Friday,
The Wall Street Journal reported that 16-year
Apple Inc. (
AAPL) veteran Steve Zadesky had
announced his intention to leave the company in the very near future, although a specific date for his departure was not revealed. Zadesky, who has been the head of the Apple Car project for more than two years, is apparently resigning for purely personal reasons.
While AAPL still has not formally confirmed the existence of its electric vehicle efforts, Project Titan has apparently been expanding at a rapid rate, with management approving an
increase in the size of the project team to roughly 1,800 people. The current goal of Project Titan is to have a finished version of the all-electric Apple Car ready for consumers by the year 2019.
With Zadesky’s resignation looming, some have begun to question the viability of a complete Apple Car within the next few years. These concerns aren’t entirely based on the coming lack of Zadesky’s input, but also on the mounting reports about current status and conditions within Project Titan.
According to
Stuff:
“Sources say that employees are struggling without ‘clear goals for the project,’ and that some of management’s deadlines are too ambitious to hit in the expected timeframes.”
However, those concerns are not shared by Dieter Zetsche, the Chief Executive of
Daimler AG (
DDAIF) and head of Mercedes-Benz. In a visit to Silicon Valley earlier this month, Zetsche stated that
progress on the Apple Car has advanced further than he had originally anticipated.
This is in stark contrast to his comments last February, when he likened the
notion of AAPL building an electric vehicle to Mercedes-Benz building a smartphone:
“If there were a rumour that Mercedes or Daimler planned to start building smartphones then they (Apple) would not be sleepless at night. And the same applies to me.”
