As Apple continues its work on self-driving car technology, it’s shifting one of its best-known executives to the Project Titan team. According to a report from Insider, Kevin Lynch has been tapped to join the team working on the car project.
Lynch serves as Apple’s VP of technology and has had a major role in the development of the Apple Watch and its associated health features. His title as VP of technology will not change through this transition, the report says, but his focus will shift gears toward the Apple Car.
Some details here are still unclear. For instance, the report says that it’s “not yet clear how Lynch’s new focus on the car efforts will affect his day-to-day responsibilities” working with the Apple Watch and Apple Health teams.
Evan Doll, who serves as Apple’s director of health software engineering, will take over some of Lynch’s responsibilities on the health team, which is led by Jeff Williams. Insider reports:
Lynch will be stepping back from Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams’ health staff, a team of health VPs that includes Dr. Sumbul Desai, head of care delivery and regulatory, Myra Haggerty, who leads algorithms, Eugene Kim, head of watch hardware, and other critical drivers of the health strategy.
Evan Doll, a director of health software engineering, will replace Lynch on the staff, one of the people said. While Doll will continue to report to Lynch, Lynch’s absence on that team, home to the organizaton’s decisionmakers, means he’ll be less tangibly involved in health strategy, two of the people said.
The Apple Car project is currently being overseen by John Giannandrea, Apple’s senior vice president of machine learning and artificial intelligence. The project has shifted in scope multiple times over the years, but Apple is currently focusing on building a self-driving system that it can use for an Apple-branded car made in partnership with a production partner.
Bloomberg reported last month that Apple has hired Ulrich Kranz from BMW to join the Apple Car team as well. Kranz spent 30 years at BMW, serving as the senior vice president of the team that developed the BMW i3 and i8 electric and hybrid cars. After he departed BMW, Kranz spent three months at Faraday Future, then cofounded the self-driving electric car startup Canoo.
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