Apple expands self-driving experts roster, hires Tesla engineer

Apple recently hired a senior engineer from Tesla Motors, presumably to work on its secret vehicle project.

Carlson, it’s worth noting, is just the latest in a long line of intriguing hires Apple has made in recent months. Prior to that, Carlson spent a few years at Gentex where he helped test software related to a “next generation automotive vision system”.

The revelations from LinkedIn profiles of Carlson and six other individuals come at a time when unidentified sources aware of the proceedings at Apple have disclosed that the company is building a auto and is studying self-driving technology. Attempts to reach all seven people were unsuccessful and Apple declined to comment.

Other Appleites include former Volkswagen engineer Megan McClain and Carnegie Mellon University graduate researcher Vinay Palakkode.

His profile doesn’t go into detail on what he did for Tesla, but he was working on the company’s autonomous vehicle firmware project and could be taking on a similar automotive firmware role at Apple.

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.

Among those hired last fall were Sanjai Massey, an engineer with experience in developing connected and automated vehicles at Ford and several suppliers; Stefan Weber, a former Bosch engineer with experience in video-based driver assistance systems, and Lech Szumilas, a former Delphi research scientist with expertise in computer vision and object detection.