Car battery technology: Long-standing Apple hardware expert joins Rivian
After the end of the Apple Car project, some employees moved to e-car specialists. Jeff Alves, former Director of Hardware Engineering, is one of them.
Rivian prototype in front of the Amazon headquarters in Seattle.
(Image: Daniel AJ Sokolov)
Apple has lost a long-standing expert in battery technology to a young automotive start-up. Jeff Alves announced this himself in a LinkedIn entry. The former Director of Hardware Engineering had worked on the charging system for the Apple Watch for eleven years and is also said to have been part of the failed Apple Car project. He is also listed in several of the iPhone company's patents for this project, including those relating to energy transfer systems and traffic management. It is therefore a good fit where Alves is going next: to the e-car provider Rivian.
Valuable lessons from Apple
The US company has recently become a serious competitor to Tesla and will soon be launching in Europe, where it has been able to gain Volkswagen as a partner (and financial backer). Alves writes on LinkedIn that he joined Apple in 2013 without knowing what he would be working on. He was then directly involved in the development of the Apple Watch charging system, which was launched on the market in 2015. "That happened within 18 months of me joining Apple," says the engineer.
He learned "incredibly valuable lessons" and also traveled to China a few times. Later, he is said to have worked directly with a vice president, for whom he then worked on "many exciting product concepts", including new architectures, prototypes and technologies. Of course, Alves does not say exactly what this was - it was probably the Apple Car. He is "enormously grateful for everything Apple has done for me". Now he is looking forward to "my new adventure".
Alves becomes head of Rivian battery development
As the specialist blog Riviantracker writes, Alves' new title at Rivian is "Senior Director of Battery Engineering". This is likely to be a central position for better battery technology at the e-car manufacturer. Rivian recently succeeded in recruiting further ex-Apple employees. These include Jonas Reinke and DJ Novotney, who themselves have only been with Rivian for a short time. The Apple people will now help the company to generate better software and hardware "and a great ecosystem", writes Riviantracker.
There has recently been speculation that Apple itself could be interested in working with Rivian - as a kind of slimmed-down Apple Car project. The rumors originated in Asia, but it remains unclear how reliable they are. The scope of the cooperation has also not been revealed - and whether it is actually Rivian and not another young US car company. Apple had invested billions in the Apple Car project and finally buried it without a product after more than ten years. It would be unusual if the company did not continue to use the knowledge gained in one way or another.
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