Like a whole bunch of tech and car companies out there, Apple is hard at work on some self-driving tech of its own. The company received a major boost to its efforts today with an announcement from the California DMV, allowing it to test its autonomous vehicles on the roads of California.
On-road testing is a very important part of autonomous cars. The data collected through these tests help these cars learn how to behave in situations when there is an actual passenger sitting in the back. In these tests, car makers can also monitor how their technology behaves in real world situations and make any changes, if required.
It will certainly be interesting to see how Apple makes use of this permission. The company was initially said to be working on a self-driving car of its own with great gusto but then, there was talk of the company scaling down its operations. At present, most sources agree that the company is likely to be developing technology that it can then license to third-party vendors — rather than a full fledged car of its own.
Either way, it will be very interesting to see how Apple makes use of this permission. Since it has already applied for a permit, it could well launch its vehicles on the roads soon, as well. However, we will have to wait to know more on that particular account.
Here is the complete list of manufacturers that can now test their autonomous cars on Californian roads:
- Volkswagen Group of America
- Mercedes Benz
- Delphi Automotive
- Tesla Motors
- Bosch
- Nissan
- GM Cruise LLC
- BMW
- Honda
- Ford
- Zoox, Inc.
- Drive.ai, Inc.
- Faraday & Future Inc.
- Baidu USA LLC
- Wheego Electric Cars Inc.
- Valeo North America, Inc.
- NextEV USA, Inc.
- Telenav, Inc.
- NVIDIA Corporation
- AutoX Technologies Inc
- Subaru
- Udacity, Inc
- Navya Inc.
- Renovo Motors Inc
- UATC LLC (Uber)
- PlusAi Inc
- Nuro, Inc
- CarOne LLC
- Apple Inc.
