Terry Dawson
According to a report in Bloomberg that Apple declined to confirm, the California-based company recruited former Ford executive Desi Ujkashevic to help it bring to market a self-driving vehicle as soon as 2025. What her role at Apple’s on-again, off-again car project will be precisely was not specified. At the time of her departure a month ago, Ujkashevic posted on LinkedIn she was “excited to start my next adventure” after finishing as director of Ford’s global automotive safety engineering office. There she was responsible for all current and future program safety strategies, including autonomous vehicles.
Sign up for the Fortune Features email list to ensure that you don’t miss out on our most important features, exclusive interviews, and investigations. The world’s most valuable company did not turn to a software prodigy or artificial intelligence expert from the tech world in its latest bid to finally launch an Apple car in the coming years. Instead, CEO Tim Cook sought advice from someone steeped in the traditions of Detroit’s unionised auto industry, which Wall Street has written off in recent years as an obsolete, value-destroying dinosaur ripe for disruption by Silicon Valley’s fast movers.
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“I hope to continue to contribute to society and advancing technology with a purpose,” she wrote on the social media site, adding her aspiration would be “ultimately making a better world.” While it would be a stretch to say Ujkashevic is a household name among carmakers, an industry source that has known her for years characterized her as a manager with impeccable soft skills likely picked for her expertise in the labyrinthine field of safety and compliance laws. “You cannot underestimate the enormous amount of work that goes into making a vehicle compliant with various regulatory regimes around the world. It’s an inescapable part of the industry — you just cannot get around it,” the person said.
“So you need someone from the automotive business to be able to do that for you, and I would suspect that’s why they hired her.” Apple has been pondering how to break into the auto industry for nearly a decade. The earliest reference to its interest was a reference in 2012 made by then independent board member and J. Crew CEO, Mickey Drexler, that the company’s legendary founder, Steve Jobs, wanted to take on Detroit’s Big Three. “Steve’s dream before he died (in 2011) was to design an iCar,” he said in an interview at the time.
Rumors that Cook, Jobs’ annointed successor, was actually following up on that idea started to trickle out two years later, as more and more reports started to emerge of Project Titan, the code name for the team developing the Apple car. Apple’s interest in the field is likely due to the possibilities that self-driving vehicles offer in terms of new revenue streams. Once drivers turn into passengers, the car becomes a kind of living room where interactive dashboard displays can be used for advertising goods and services much like any smartphone or tablet.
The company’s efforts however have been marked by repeated setbacks. An ever-changing roster of project managers came and went, seemingly with little progress. Internal conflicts furthermore dogged the team as disagreements reportedly ensued as to whether Apple should develop an entire car or simply focus on its intelligence and user interface. This would be a beefier, much more expansive version of its CarPlay feature, which seamlessly connects an Apple smartphone to the car’s infotainment system. Various partners in the industry have also been purported to be in talks to assist Apple, including BMW, Nissan and Hyundai, only to reportedly break negotiations over strategic differences.
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