Apple’s electric vehicle project has run into some problems

Hot on the heels of the report that Steve Zadesky, the head of Apple’s electric vehicle project, will be leaving the company in the near future, a new report is claiming that Apple has stopped hiring new employees for the project. Published by AppleInsider on Monday, the report claims that Jony Ive is less than pleased with the progress that the group working on the project has made, which consists of more than 1,000 Apple employees, and won’t be hiring any more people to join the team. It’s been said that Zadesky and several other members of the team aren’t happy with how ambitious the project is, which may be one of the reasons for this week’s drama surrounding the project. 

Apple has placed a hiring freeze on the team responsible for the company’s nascent automotive ambitions after executives became unhappy with the project’s direction and progress, AppleInsider has learned. The change was precipitated by a post-holiday progress review conducted by Apple design chief Jony Ive, according to a previously reliable source with knowledge of the team’s activities. Ive is said to have “expressed his displeasure” with the group’s headway. In all, Apple is believed to have more than 1,000 people working on Project Titan at sites both inside and outside of Cupertino. Hiring was so aggressive that Apple’s poaching of engineering talent from Tesla is thought to have had a “big impact” on the Elon Musk-led company’s ability to keep up with development of future vehicles. The news comes days after a report that Steve Zadesky, a longtime Apple engineering lead who was initially put in charge of Project Titan, would leave the company. It’s not immediately clear whether Zadesky’s departure — said to be for “personal reasons” — is related to the staffing restrictions. Apple’s car initiative has seen multiple setbacks in recent months as the company works to meet an ambitious schedule that would have final engineering completed by 2019.