Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, sought advice from someone schooled in Detroit’s unionized car industry traditions, which Wall Street has written off as an outmoded, value-destroying dinosaur ripe for disruption by Silicon Valley’s quick movers in recent years.
According to a Bloomberg story that Apple has yet to corroborate, the California-based business has hired former Ford executive Desi Ujkashevic to assist it in bringing a self-driving vehicle to market as early as 2025.
While it would be a stretch to call Ujkashevic a household name among automakers, an industry source who has known her for years described her as a manager with great soft skills who was likely chosen for her knowledge of the complex world of safety and compliance regulations. “The vast amount of labor that goes into making a vehicle compatible with numerous regulatory systems throughout the world cannot be underestimated.” “It’s an unavoidable element of the business – you can’t avoid it,” the source added.
For over a decade, Apple has been thinking about how to break into the vehicle sector. The first hint of its interest came from then-independent board member and J. Crew CEO Mickey Drexler, who said in 2012 that the company’s renowned creator, Steve Jobs, intended to take on Detroit’s Big Three.
In an interview at the time, Tim Cook stated, “Steve’s dream before he died (in 2011) was to develop an iCar.” Rumors that Cook, Jobs’ chosen successor, was following up on the concept began to circulate two years later, as more and more news about Project Titan, the team working on the Apple automobile, began to surface.
Apple’s interest in the sector is most likely due to the potential for self-driving vehicles’ new income streams. When drivers become passengers, the car transforms into a living room with interactive dashboard displays that can be used to advertise goods and services in the same way that a smartphone or tablet can.
