The Apple Car Program Gains a 20-Year Veteran Lamborghini Executive

The rumored Apple car is inching closer to production, with a new hire from Lamborghini.

Apple has been rumored to be working on a car for more than a decade now, but only recently the rumors have ratcheted up their plausibility. Apple has taken on a longstanding Lamborghini executive, Luigi Taraborrelli, to work on the Apple car program that the brand won’t directly say exists.

Taraborrelli, a 20-year veteran of Lamborghini, was most recently Lamborghini’s head of chassis and vehicle dynamics. He worked on projects like the Urus SUV, and Hurrican supercar, and was responsible for braking, suspension, and chassis engineering across many Lamborghini projects.

Taraborrelli is just the latest in a string of high-profile automotive industry hires. Last year, Apple hired Ulrich Kranz, of Canoo. The year before, Apple poached Stuart Bowers of Tesla’s Autopilot program, likely to assist Apple in crafting self-driving technology.

Only rumblings have made their way out of the Apple office, nothing official from the company itself. Many outlets have reported that the theoretical Apple car would be radically different than other cars. It could feature a seating arrangement in which the seats face each other, and be fully autonomous with no steering wheel or pedals.

The rumored Apple car project has had plenty of drama and turmoil, with high-profile hires returning to traditional automotive companies not long after joining Apple. Doug Field joined Apple from Tesla in 2018. At Tesla, he led vehicle programs, but he left for Ford just three years later.

Apple has not confirmed anything to anyone about the Apple Car program, but many familiar with it, say that the tech company wants to release a car by 2025.

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