Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
Lucid Motors has hired former Apple Inc. veteran Robert Windel to join its in-car audio tuning team, bringing in an expert who helped the tech giant fine-tune the audio for all its products, including iPhones, AirPods, and Macs.
Windel started at the electric vehicle manufacturer last month as a senior Audio Tuning engineer, according to a LinkedIn post, bringing 23 years of experience in the professional audio industry.
In early 2021, the Peter Rawlinson-led company announced the integration of Dolby Atmos as part of its 21-speaker sound system in its inaugural model, the luxury Air sedan.
In a post on LinkedIn, the Apple veteran highlighted his passion for car audio and how it sparked his interest in the audio industry.
“This is going full circle for me, as car audio is what originally ignited my passion for acoustics, sound fidelity, system design, tuning, etc, 30 years ago when I was a freshman in high school. The first thing I did when I got my first car was replace all the speakers and add a box of subwoofers and an amp in the trunk,” Windel wrote.
When joining Apple, he was responsible for built-in speaker tunings for all Mac and iOS products over the first four years in the tech giant. In late 2015, Windel was promoted to team manager and started leading a team working on the audio media tuning on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, Home Pod and AirPods.
Lucid will begin production of its second model, a three-row sports utility vehicle named Gravity, ‘later this year,’ and is planning a mid-size SUV for 2026.
Lucid has recently reaffirmed the annual production guidance of 9,000 vehicles. If it reaches its annual production target, the company’s annual production figures will increase by about 6.79 per cent from 2023.
With 1,728 vehicles produced in the first quarter and 2,110 vehicles in the second quarter, the California-based EV maker expects to produce 5,162 vehicles between July and December of 2024.
According to Motor Intelligence, the company sold 660 vehicles during August in the United States, down from the 697 registered in July but up from the 608 Air vehicles sold in June.
Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
