Sources: Apple has hired Luigi Taraborrelli, who was most recently Lamborghini's head of chassis and vehicle dynamics, to work on its self-driving electric car
Apple Inc. has enlisted one of Lamborghini's top car-development managers in a sign that it's stepping up work …
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's car effort has been assembled almost entirely through poaching: the head of Mercedes-Benz R&D arrived in 2015, followed by Fiat Chrysler quality chief Doug Betts and a string of Tesla engineers including Chris Porritt, the former VP of Vehicle Engineering. Last year the project got an internal leader when Apple tapped Watch executive Kevin Lynch to help run it.
First-order effects
- Lamborghini loses the executive who owned chassis and vehicle dynamics across its lineup, while Apple gains exactly the high-performance handling expertise its self-driving electric car program has lacked among its software-heavy hires.
Second-order effects
- The hire signals to rival automakers that Apple's car project remains active and is now filling hardware-engineering seats, not just autonomy research — raising the pressure on incumbents to defend their own dynamics and chassis talent against tech-industry offers.
Third-order effects
- If the seven-year hiring pattern holds, Apple is assembling a complete in-house vehicle-development stack — powertrain, quality, engineering leadership, now chassis — pointing toward an entry into autos as a vertically integrated newcomer rather than a licensing partner, with traditional OEMs as the talent pool being drained.
The trend: Automotive engineering talent is steadily migrating from legacy and exotic-car manufacturers to technology companies building their own vehicles, with Apple's car team as the most persistent accumulator.