Apple’s added another powerhouse staff member to its self-driving car team lineup in the form of Jaime Waydo, previously a senior engineer at Alphabet’s Waymo as well as NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Waydo was “instrumental” at Waymo, some of her former coworkers have stated. Specifically, she was responsible for checking the safety of prototypes, and helped coach the company on when it was okay to begin real-world road tests in Phoenix.
Prior to her experience at Google, Waydo worked at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab for more than 10 years, developing one of NASA’s Mars rovers.
While the implications of this hire are uncertain, it signals the safety concern in the self-driving car industry following a death caused by an Uber vehicle and multiple accidents involving partially autonomous Tesla cars. Apple has been steadily growing its test fleet, and may need more people for quality control.
It’s unknown as to where Apple’s self-driving car project currently stands. The company started out designing its own electric vehicle under the codename “Project Titan,” but soon scaled back to platform work. Its long-term goal may be the ridehailing market, most likely in partnership with one or more third parties.
Apple has reportedly signed a deal with Volkswagen to use the company’s T6 Transporter vans for its PAIL (Palo Alto to Infinite Loop) shuttle network. The project is allegedly behind schedule, and consuming most of the Apple car division’s time. Even once the shuttles are ready it’s expected that they’ll still have a backup driver and a co-pilot.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.
Via AppleInsider and The Information