Veteran German auto boss joins board of U.S. self-driving software startup - Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A company working to make open-source self-driving software reliable enough to be used in commercially available vehicles said it had hired a former German car boss as it seeks to expand its reach. Palo Alto, California-based Apex.AI has added Karl-Thomas Neumann, an industry veteran who in the past served as the chief executive of Continental AG and led Volkswagen AG's China business, to its board. "Karl-Thomas is a great fit for us as we're trying to learn off what worked in the past and reach out to more industry players," Apex.AI co-founder Jan Becker told Reuters in an interview this week. The U.S. firm is expanding to Europe, opening an office in Munich, Germany in July. Founded by Becker and Dejan Pangercic, two longtime self-driving car engineers formerly at automotive technology supplier Bosch Corp, Apex.AI plans to make a safer and more reliable version of the so-called Robot Operating System, or ROS.