Hitzinger's first job in the automotive industry was at Toyota Motorsport as a development engineer. Under Hitzinger's leadership, in 2006, Cosworth F1 team developed the first ever F1 engine (Cosworth CA, 2.4 Litre, V8) to attain 20,000 rpm at the track, despite the difficult circumstances (underfunded and small number of staff). This set a new standard at the time for F1 engines. From 2006 to 2011 he worked as Head of Advanced Technologies for
Red Bull Technology Since 2011, Hitzinger has been Technical Director of the Porsche LMP1 project. After winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Porsche 919 in 2015 he left Porsche in March 2016 in order to move to Apple. Hitzinger served at
Apple's
Titan electric car project as Head of Product Design in the Special Projects Group. In January 2019 he started working for Volkswagen as Member of the management board responsible for technical development for its commercial vehicles division as well as Senior Vice President of its self-driving car and MaaS (mobility-as-a-service) programs. Hitzinger's "ability to conceptualise clean-sheet designs and manage projects" led to his appointment as CEO of ARTEMIS GmbH, a 100% subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group, He stepped down from this position in May 2021. ==References==