At Apple, he was considered to be the man behind the creation of two processors that fuelled most of the company's mobile devices from 2010 to 2012. Now, Jim Keller has been hired by Tesla to spearhead its Autopilot hardware engineering team, according to ZDNet.
"Jim Keller is joining Tesla as Vice President of Autopilot Hardware Engineering," Tesla later confirmed. "Jim will bring together the best internal and external hardware technologies to develop the safest, most advanced autopilot systems in the world."
Keller was the man who created the A4 and A5 processors, which was used in several of Apple's mobile devices that were built during 2010 to 2012. After her stint with Apple, Keller moved to AMD. Now, he is making another career in Tesla under Elon Musk.
Tesla's Autopilot functionality in its Model S has been the reason behind the company leading the auto-industry and gaining traction in self-driving technology. The technology allows the car to "automatically steer down the highway, change lanes, and adjust speed in response to traffic." This is made possible through its cameras, radar, ultrasonic sensors and data. The new model is also able to spot for parking areas once you have arrived in your point of destination.
Keller's role at Tesla is to help develop chips that power Autopilot. As of present, Autopilot is still far from perfect. That is the challenge for Keller and Co. He will work on Tesla Model 3 and future vehicles.
Meanwhile, the company has been reported to have applied for "licenses to sell and service its luxury electric vehicles in Michigan, even though Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation in late 2014 that bans the company's business model of directly selling cars to customers."
The California-based automaker has submitted its applications in November f last year to the to the Michigan Secretary of State Office. The follow-up information is reported to have been submitted in recent weeks.
