Apple has been granted a permit to test self-driving cars on the streets of California.<\/p>\n
It has long been known that Apple is working on automotive-related projects, but the company has never publicly confirmed any details.<\/p>\n
The news was made public by California\u2019s Department of Motor Vehicles on Friday.<\/p>\n
The agency said Apple has been given permission to test three cars manufactured by Lexus.<\/p>\n
Apple has not commented – other than to point to its letter late last year expressing an interest in the technology.<\/p>\n
The company was “excited about the potential of automated systems in many areas, including transportation\u201d, it said at the time.<\/p>\n
Rumours about Apple\u2019s car ambitions have ranged from speculation it was building its own car to the suggestion it was instead focusing more on in-car software.<\/p>\n
Internally known as Project Titan, the project at one point was understood to have more than 1,000 employees working on it, though the current scale of Apple\u2019s efforts is unknown.<\/p>\n
Encountering self-driving cars in California is a daily occurrence for those living around Silicon Valley. Apple has become the 30th company to be granted a testing permit.<\/p>\n
Among the stipulations for approval is the requirement to regularly report back statistics on the performance of the technology – including how often humans have to intervene when the computer gets it wrong.<\/p>\n
Apple’s competitors have already been testing autonomous vehicles. Last year Waymo – a company spun out of Google’s self-driving programme – clocked up 635,868 miles in California. Statistics showed a human had to step in on average once every 5,000 miles of driving.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Apple has been granted a permit to test self-driving cars on the streets of California. It has long been known that Apple is working on automotive-related projects, but the company has never publicly confirmed any details. The news was made public by California\u2019s Department of Motor Vehicles on Friday. The agency said Apple has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[106],"tags":[224,6201],"yoast_head":"\n