Apple has hired a 20-year veteran of supercar maker Lamborghini to work on the tech company’s not-so-secret electric autonomous vehicle program, according to a report by Bloomberg.
The executive, Luigi Taraborrelli, appears to have left Lamborghini in May 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile. Taraborrelli has worked at Lamborghini for nearly 21 years, mostly recently leading the development of chassis and vehicle dynamics. During his tenure at the company, Taraborrelli worked on Lamborghini’s Urus SUV, Huracan Coupé, Performante and Aventador Coupé, among others. He also worked on a few limited series projects such as the Lamborghini Sterrato.
Taraborrelli’s hiring, along with a few others in recent months, suggests Apple is still committed to producing an electric car. Of course, Apple has made those signals before only to lose key employees or run into other headwinds that threatened to derail the project.
Apple’s so-called Project Titan, perhaps the worst kept secret in Silicon Valley, has had its ups and downs since launching in 2014. The project has been repeatedly delayed and the company even reduced the team’s size at one point.
It also lost its fair share of talent. For instance, Doug Field, the engineering executive who was leading Apple Special Projects — a team that was also working on Titan car project — was poached by Ford in September 2021.
However, Apple has made a few key hires and appointments in the past year, including tapping one of its top software executives Kevin Lynch to oversee the project. In May, Apple hired Desi Ujkashevic, a longtime Ford executive who most recently was global director of safety engineering.