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Self Driving Cars
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Apple driverless car project kicks up a gear, but remains cloaked in secrecy
California test fleet doubles in size to 55 vehicles
Apple has doubled its fleet of autonomous test cars operating on the public roads of California in just four months.
In January this year, the company operated 27 self-driving vehicles (each with a safety driver), but that number has now climbed to 55.
According to California DMV data uncovered by MacReports, Apple has 83 drivers who are certified to operate its vehicles in public. The iPhone maker was first granted permission to test its vehicles in its home state in April 2017, when it had just three cars.
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With 55 vehicles to its name, Apple now operates the second-largest fleet of all autonomous car developers. First place (104 vehicles) belongs to GM Cruise, the General Motors initiative to build a car without a steering wheel. Waymo, owned by Google parent Alphabet, is in third with 51 vehicles, while Tesla is fourth with 41 and Drive.Ai is fifth with 14.
In total, 53 permit holders in California have permission to use 409 self-driving test vehicles. Many companies operate additional fleets in Arizona, where Uber recently had its license suspended following a fatality with an autonomous test car.
Despite the sudden increase in Apple's use of autonomous vehicles, the company has not yet applied for one of California's new truly driverless permits, which grants permission for a car to drive itself on public roads with no one on board. Instead of a safety driver, companies operating these vehicles must be able to shut them down remotely at any moment.
How the interior of a driverless car could look, according to GMGeneral Motors
Rumors have swirled for years that Apple is working on a car. While the so-called Project Titan began with dreams of making an actual car, the focus has recently shifted to developing autonomous technology rather than complete vehicles. Many technology companies, such as Waymo, share this direction. By 2020, Waymo plans to install its autonomous system on up to 20,000 electric Jaguars.
Although Apple hasn't made any formal announcements about its automotive ambitions (aside from its CarPlay infotainment system), the company's director of artificial intelligence, Ruslan Salakhutdinov, gave some insight into what it is doing at an AI event in December 2017.
In a paper, Salakhutdinov described the autonomous system's operation in the rain and its ability to spot pedestrians partially hidden by parked cars.
While we don't have much more information for now, Apple must submit a Vehicle Disengagement Report to the DMV in January 2019. A requirement for all companies operating driverless vehicles in California, this document logs every time an autonomous car's safety driver had to intervene and why.
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