Reuters is reporting that the tech giant is rumoured to have poached electric power train specialists from bankrupt San Francisco startup Mission Motors. Apple is now widely acknowledged to be developing an electric car of its own, under the project code name Titan.
Mission man Derek Kaufman says that the loss of “key” people to Apple directly led to the motorcycle company’s failure. You can read the original report yourself, but given Mission’s unstable past, and history of ever changing strategic direction, it ‘s likely that those key individuals understood that the company was in trouble and may have simply left for better prospects.
Errata : An earlier version of this story confused Mission Motors (the above company) with Mission Motorcycles. The two were at one time the same thing, but the later was spun off as an independent business and went bankrupt earlier this year.  Mission Motors spent the past few years marketing it’s EVT electric power train solution to various clients, including Harley-Davidson and Mugen.
No need Wilfred, that is exactly what happened.
So it will copy others’ technology, be twice as expensive as comparable vehicles, everything will be made with bizarre proprietary pieces that the aftermarket can’t service, will have huge price gaps over the competition for peripherals and service, and there will be an effective marketing campaign to convince naifs that it is somehow more “alternative’ to purchase this than, uh, alternatives.
That Reuters article is a total fantasy. It’s right up there with saying that the RMS Carpathia is guilty of poaching passengers off of the Titanic.
Another good reason not to get one.
Can you “poach” employees (make that ex-employees) from a bankrupt company? I guess it gets more views to say they were “poached” rather than “hired”.
Guess I should have finished reading the entire article rather than scanning before hitting enter. I wish there was a way to delete comments. :O
No worries Wilfred. I can accommodate your wish
It’s all good until the first software update ?