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Text | Deng Simiao
Source: Smart Car Reference
Apple makes cars, this team is toxic.
No, just joined the executive less than a year ago, the former head of AutoPilot software from Tesla——
Christopher Moore, known as the great god of CJ Moore, suddenly left.
Foreign media said that he joined for less than 7 months, but Big Brother Moore’s own LinkedIn shows that he joined Apple in August last year to develop self-driving software… In short, he came and went in a hurry.
The reason is a mystery, I don’t know if it is personal incompatibility, or the probation period has not expired.
In short, it is now the vice president of the lidar company Luminar, in charge of the software department.
And when it comes to this big brother Moore, the most controversial is the anti-water incident against Tesla and Musk.
At that time, inside Tesla, he bluntly reported to the relevant departments that the AutoPilot and FSD that Musk boasted about every day were actually only L2-level – far from the L5 that Mr. Ma said.
In addition, in October last year, he also testified in the case of a Tesla AutoPilot fatal car accident…
So everyone thought that he left Tesla because of “three different views”, but now suddenly leaving Apple, it is a bit incomprehensible.
Interestingly, this time, the outside world has speculated that it must be the problem of Apple’s car-making team.
Who is CJ Moore?
CJ Moore, because Tesla’s resume is of concern.
He joined Tesla in 2014, initially as a senior integration engineer, then climbed all the way, and finally became the head of Tesla’s AutoPilot software, leading the development of Tesla’s autopilot software.
Nearly seven years at Tesla before leaving in 2021.
These 7 years are also the period when Tesla went from “the brink of bankruptcy” to skyrocketing, and the key reason behind it is the launch of AutoPilot and the continuous upgrade of Tesla’s automatic driving.
And as we all know, Musk used first principles to clarify the pure visual route for Tesla’s autonomous driving, a set of camera sensor solutions to conquer the world, and the north slope to Mount Everest.
This route was criticized for being radical because of potential safety hazards, but in the end, Musk still completed the implementation of the product from the technical idea to the product by relying on his strong personal aura.
In the process, a large number of people have also been achieved, such as Gu Junli, who was later poached by He Xiaopeng at a high price, and Andrej Karpathy, the current Tesla AI chief, Andre Karpas.
CJ Moore, of course, is also a beneficiary.
Because of the success of AutoPilot, he was in a high position as the head of software, his net worth soared, and his popularity went out of the circle.
But CJ Moore left Tesla, not because of outside temptations.
If you look at the series of operations that were later exposed, it was purely because of his disagreement with his boss Musk.
At the beginning of 2021, as Tesla AutoPilot began to be investigated by the US official, CJ Moore, as the person in charge, publicly opposed Musk.
When questioned by the Caltrans DMV investigation, he bluntly said that his boss Musk’s bragging — fully driverless by 2021 — was baseless.
In addition, he also made up for the knife, AutoPilot and Tesla’s FSD autopilot, which is still in L2 level.
The background at that time was that Musk, the helm of Tesla, had already put the L5 and Tesla autopilot on an “equal sign” in public speeches around the world.
Publicly dismantle the boss, don’t want to do it? ? ?
So CJ Moore really resigned soon after.
Until October 2021, he appeared in Tesla-related news again. Only this time, he appeared in court as a witness to assist in the investigation into Tesla’s AutoPilot fatal crash.
And until this case, the news that CJ Moore has joined Apple was not exposed.
And because of CJ Moore’s transfer, Tesla and Apple’s grievances and grievances have added a new drama…
Perhaps you have heard how many times that Musk and Cook are not in harmony. Even when Tesla was in the most difficult time, Musk called Cook to ask for an acquisition, and Cook didn’t even answer the phone. There is another way of saying that Cook Ke made a foul language to Musk because Musk proposed that Apple buy Tesla and then make Musk the CEO of Apple.
The feud between Musk and Cook was actually related to Apple’s frequent poaching of Tesla at the earliest.
At that time, one or two of Tesla’s core technical talents became Apple employees – and the exposure of Apple’s top-secret car-building project “Project Titan” was also related to Tesla’s talent flow.
Musk was petty and weak at that time, so he could only speak publicly:
Apple is the grave of Tesla engineers.
The implication is that talent leaves Tesla to go to Apple, and there is only one dead end.
So now, with the departure of CJ Moore from Apple, this sentence has once again become popular among netizens, who have expressed that “Musk is honest and not bullying me”.
Is Apple the Grave of Tesla Engineers?
The weird thing is that Musk really got it right.
Because in addition to CJ Moore, Apple has also poached many executives from Tesla.
One of the core leaders of Apple’s car-building project, Stuart Bowers, comes from Tesla.
Another hardware giant, Doug Field, was also at Tesla before returning to Apple to build cars.
Drive engineering giant Michael Schwekutsch, before joining Apple in 2019 was
Tesla’s Vice President of Front Drive Systems.
But these days, all of the above-mentioned ones are gone from Apple.
Of course, there is no go. For example, Steve MacManus, the former vice president of Tesla’s interior and exterior engineering, and Andrew Kim, the former Tesla designer, have not heard transfer rumors after joining Apple.
The last time Musk’s words came true was when analyst Ming-Chi Kuo broke the news that Apple’s car-building project had been disbanded for “a period of time” and was being reorganized and started again…
However, it is unknown whether the above-mentioned former Tesla executives were affected by the dissolution and reorganization.
In short, the fact is that Apple did not become the “second spring” position of Tesla talents. After many people joined the company, there were no new achievements.
Coupled with the growing influence of Musk and more and more fans, Apple is the tomb of Tesla engineers, which can be regarded as a certainty.
CJ Moore continues to betray Musk
Interestingly, CJ Moore resigned from Apple and re-employed, and went to a direction that Musk continued to diss –
Lidar.
As we all know, Musk thinks that it is stupid to get into the car with lidar, and constantly ridicules that lidar is like a “crutch” for smart cars, only “silly X will use it”.
And CJ Moore’s new owner, Luminar, is the representative of the LiDAR smart car.
Its founder, Austin Russell (Austin), dropped out of Stanford at the age of 17 to start a business and became a representative young genius of lidar, and the lidar he built is currently used for mass production cars.
At present, Luminar has also reached cooperation with a number of Chinese-related automotive players, including Volvo, SAIC, and Pony.ai, to promote the mass production of lidars.
It is said that Luminar’s lidar has reduced the cost to less than 500 US dollars – 3,000 yuan.
Therefore, CJ Moore can naturally bring the practical experience of AutoPilot to more smart car players in the industry through Luminar.
In addition, it may also be to bring the experience related to lidar to Tesla.
Because just this year, Tesla was revealed to have reached a lidar supply cooperation with Luminar…
OK, this is the grievances and grievances of smart cars caused by CJ Moore’s job-hopping. If you are interested in Apple’s car, you can also continue to see the summary of the previous situation through the portal.
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