Apple Inc. has employed Ulrich Kranz, a former senior government at BMW AG’s electrical automobile division, to assist lead its personal car efforts, based on folks accustomed to the state of affairs.

The know-how big employed Kranz in current weeks, a couple of month after he stepped down as CEO of Canoo Inc., a developer of self-driving electrical automobiles. Earlier than co-founding Canoo, Kranz was senior vice chairman of the group that developed the i3 and i8 vehicles at BMW, the place he labored for 30 years.

Kranz is one in every of Apple’s most important automotive hires, a transparent signal that the iPhone maker is decided to construct a self-driving electrical automobile to rival Tesla Inc. and different carmakers. Kranz will report back to Doug Area, who led improvement of Tesla’s mass-market Mannequin 3 and now runs Apple’s automobile venture, mentioned the folks, who requested anonymity to debate a personal matter.

Apple has turn into the world’s Most worthy firm, with a market capitalization of greater than $2 trillion, by promoting iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, Macs and providers. With buyers and clients clamoring for brand spanking new merchandise, the corporate has focused vehicles and augmented-reality headsets. An Apple spokesperson confirmed Kranz’s hiring.

Apple started growing a car in 2014 however shelved the hassle round 2016 to concentrate on an autonomous platform it may promote to different firms or ultimately use itself. Alongside the best way, Apple poached a number of Tesla executives, who now assist head up drive-train engineering, self-driving software program and interiors and exteriors.

Final 12 months, Apple gave oversight of the operation to John Giannandrea, senior vice chairman of machine studying and synthetic intelligence and Area’s boss. A number of months in the past, Apple rebooted its efforts to develop a full-fledged electrical automobile, however improvement stays within the early phases, so a launch is probably going not less than 5 years away.

Earlier than hiring Kranz, Apple lost some key auto executives. Benjamin Lyon, Jaime Waydo and Dave Scott, who labored on engineering, security programs and robotics, respectively, all departed in current months. It’s unclear why the three left.

Following profitable stints at BMW’s Mini division and groups engaged on sports activities vehicles and SUVs, Kranz was requested to run Undertaking I, a battery-powered car skunkworks began in 2008. It yielded the all-electric i3 compact and the plug-in hybrid i8 sports activities automobile. The previous was panned by design critics, and manufacturing was very restricted on the latter.

Kranz left BMW in 2016 and shortly grew to become chief know-how officer at Faraday Future, an electrical car startup based mostly in Los Angeles. He stayed solely three months, earlier than co-founding Canoo. Each corporations have struggled with their know-how and skill to supply automobiles, whereas Canoo reportedly mentioned promoting itself to Apple and different firms.

Canoo went public in December after a reverse merger with a particular goal acquisition firm, or SPAC, known as Hennessy Capital Acquisition Corp. Canoo final month mentioned it was being investigated by the U.S. Securities and Change Fee, changing into the third clean-energy auto startup to reveal a federal probe prior to now 12 months. Canoo plans to debut a minivan for lower than $35,000 subsequent 12 months.

Apple has labored with BMW for a few years, integrating the iPod with auto infotainment programs again in 2004 and extra just lately making the iPhone double as a automobile key. Apple CEO Tim Prepare dinner was noticed testing a BMW i8 exterior Apple’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters in 2014, and firm executives have been recognized to go to BMW places of work lately.