Apple hires Tesla’s head of electric powertrains

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Apple might have scaled back its team that’s responsible for its self-driving car project, but it doesn’t seem like the company is giving up on the segment. In fact, a recent hire might mean they’re bucking down on it. Apple just hired Michael Schwekutsch, Tesla’s vice president for overseeing electric powertrains. He is now Apple’s senior director of Engineering at the Special Project Group, which is the division in charge of driverless cars. As expected, no one has mentioned what he’ll be doing in the company, but his background does tell us a bit of why Apple has taken him onboard.

Schwekutsch has a lot of experience working with electric drivetrains, and it isn’t limited to his work with Tesla. He’s worked on cars like the second-generation Roadster, the Semi, BMW i8, Fiat 500e, and Porsche 918 Spyder, among other EVs and hybrids. It’s expected he might continue on that path with Apple. But we won’t know for sure. We’re keeping our eyes peeled for any updates.

Source: Engadget

Telsa will use Chromium for its in-car browser

It’s well-known that Tesla’s in-car browser has its share of issues. So, when someone brought this up with Elon Musk on Twitter, the company’s CEO says Tesla is going to upgrade the browser to Chromium. Google’s open-source browser project generates code for Chrome and other browsers or vendors outside of Google. This doesn’t mean Chrome is coming to Tesla, but it could mean the Chromium code will power the new browser. What isn’t known is when this will happen. It could be something that will come out soon or many years down the line. A recent update fixed some issues with the current browser, which should be enough for some users until Chromium version does come out.

Source: Engadget

Tesla CEO Elon Musk reminds public that its patents can be used ‘in good faith’

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In an effort to combat climate change, Tesla CEO Elon Musk reminds the general public that all of the company’s patents are public and can be used “in good faith.”He believes that the problem isn’t the non-Tesla electric cars, but that there’s still “the enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out of the world’s factories every day.” As Fossbytes points out, the announcement comes out on the same day a Chinese national was arrested for stealing a major patent for Project Titan, which is Apple’s self-driving cars project.

Tesla issues largest voluntary recall with the Model S for power steering issues

Tesla is taking a proactive stance and recalling 123,000 Model S vehicles built before April 2016 over a power steering issue. The automaker emailed customers saying none of the other models are affected by this issue and there are no injuries or crashes reported in connection with this issue. In the email, Tesla said they’ve “observed excessive corrosion in the power steering bolts” and the issue seems more prevalent in colder climates where road salt is used.

“If the bolts fail, the driver is still able to steer the car, but increased force is required due to loss or reduction of power assist,” Tesla wrote in the email to customers. “This primarily makes the car harder to drive at low speeds and for parallel parking, but does not materially affect control at high speed, where only small steering wheel force is needed.” But Tesla assures Model S owners that they don’t have to stop driving their cars if they haven’t experienced issues. And they would let Model S owners know when a retrofit for their car is available in their area. It’ll take around an hour to install. It is the company's biggest recall, affecting around half of the Model S vehicles built to date. In 2015, Tesla needed to recall 90,000 Model S cars for a seat belt issue, and in the following year, 53,000 Model S and X cars had to have their parking brakes replaced.

Source: The Verge