While Apple has been very secretive about its autonomous car project, the tech giant’s filings with the California Department of Motor Vehicles indicate that it has ramped up the testing of the self-driving vehicle.
The company quadrupled its test driving distance in 2023 compared to 2022, logging 450,000 miles of autonomous driving in the US.
Previous reports claimed that the company has toned down its efforts to develop an autonomously-driving electric car. However, according to the latest filings, Apple is still going strong with the project even if it may have lowered its expectations.
Apple Still Lagging Behind Other Autonomous Vehicle Developers in Testing
Apple’s increased focus on testing its autonomous EV is relatively recent, with a majority of the testing miles being recorded in the second half of 2023. The tests peaked in August when Apple recorded 83,900 miles of autonomous testing.
Besides Waymo, Amazon’s Zoox and a few other companies are currently permitted to test their vehicles in California without safety drivers.
However, despite ramping up the testing, Apple still lags behind more advanced companies developing autonomous cars.
For instance, Alphabet’s Waymo drove a whopping 3.7 million testing miles in the state with a safety driver behind the wheel, 1.2 million testing miles with no driver, and over 1.6 million additional miles with passengers.
Apple is yet to obtain a permit to carry out completely driverless testing on public roads in California, which means it must have a safety driver behind the wheel at all times.
It’s worth noting that besides the testing miles recorded in California, Waymo also operates a driverless autonomous taxi service in Phoenix and carrying out tests in Austin, Texas.
General Motors’ autonomous vehicle division Cruise surpasses Apple in testing too, despite its troubled state. The company halted its nationwide testing of autonomous vehicles soon after losing its permit to deploy in California in October 2023.
However, it still managed to rack up 2.65 million miles of test driving in the state, which is more than 2.2 million more than what Apple logged.
While California’s reporting guidelines make it a challenge to compare the testing data directly, Apple clearly has a long way to go before it can catch up with its biggest rivals.
Apple Reportedly Working on v2x Technology for Its Autonomous Cars
With Apple being highly secretive about the project, not much is known of the autonomously driving cars that are under development by the iPhone maker.
In 2022, Apple hired ex-Ford executive Desi Ujkashevic to help with the development of its first-ever autonomous EV.
However, reports suggest that the company is working on a vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology that would enable the cars to connect to the Internet of Things (IoT) and even communicate with each other.
The tech giant has already filed several new software and hardware patents focused on riding comfort features, such as suspension and seats.
While it was earlier reported that the Apple car would arrive in 2024, the launch has since been postponed. The good news, however, is that the project to develop the car, which will supposedly be priced under USD 100,000 finally seems to be gaining momentum.
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