Waymo hires Tesla’s head of vehicle programs ahead of Robotaxi unveiling

Waymo has hired Tesla’s former head of vehicle programs, responsible for product and program Management of all Tesla vehicles, just ahead of Tesla’s Robotaxi unveiling.

Daniel Ho is an aerospace engineer who went into an automotive product planning career starting with a 12-year stint at Ford.

In 2013, shortly after the launch of the Model S, Ho joined Tesla to lead the program. He oversaw the launch of the Model S Dual Motor, Autopilot 1.0 and P90 Ludicrous programs.

Ho then became Tesla’s Model 3 program manager in 2014 during the early prototyping days of the program and led it all the way into Tesla’s first high-volume production vehicle.

He was also added the responsibilities of the Model Y program in 2020 through 2022.

In 2022, Ho was promoted to Director of Vehicle Programs and New Vehicle Introductions, overseeing all program managers and reporting directly to CEO Elon Musk.

He wrote about his role on LinkedIn:

During my tenure we delivered and ramped Model Y and Cybertruck, launched new factories in Berlin and Texas and grew overall production volume from 0.5M to 1.85M cars per year while establishing foundational work on the future Robotaxi program.

Some reports stated that Ho and his team were involved in the massive wave of layoffs at Tesla earlier this year.

That said, there were several reports of Elon Musk chaosly firing teams and then having to rehire them after the fact.

Regardless, we are now getting a better idea of the Ho’s situation.

Electrek found a LinkedIn post that Ho shared last week in which he announced that he would be joining Waymo as Programs Director:

I’m excited to announce that I’ve joined Waymo as Programs Director. I’m honored to contribute to our mission, build on the awesome work the team has done to date and help accelerate autonomous vehicle technology!

On his LinkedIn profile, Ho lists his job at Tesla as ending last month and joining Waymo right away.

Ho would be joining Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving vehicle company, just as Tesla is about to unveil its Robotaxi this week, a vehicle program Ho was working on.

We reported earlier today that David Zhang, who was one of Ho’s top program managers, also recently confirmed leaving Tesla.