Apple Moving Forward With Self-Driving Car

Documents show that executives have discussed autonomous vehicle plans with officials at California’s department of motor vehicles.

September 21, 2015

NEW YORK – An Apple executive discussed the company’s plans for an autonomous vehicle back in August with officials at California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), the Guardian reports.

According to documents obtained by the Guardian, Mike Maletic, a senior legal counsel at Apple, had an hour-long meeting on August 17 with the department’s self-driving car experts. Both Google and Uber are advancing their plans to develop self-driving cars, according to the news source.

The Guardian disclosed that Apple looked into booking a secure car testing site in California to try out its autonomous vehicle, “codenamed Project Titan.”  The California DMV is developing regulations for the post-testing deployment of autonomous vehicles that currently under development. The regulations will establish the requirements that manufacturers must meet to certify that their autonomous vehicle has been successfully tested, meets certain safety requirements, and is ready for the general public to operate on public roads.

The DMV’s autonomous vehicles testing regulations took effect on September 16, 2014. As of September 4, 2015, DMV has issued Autonomous Vehicle Testing Permits to: Volkswagen, Mercedes Benz, Google, Delphi Automotive, Tesla Motors, Bosch, Nissan, Cruise Automation, BMW and Honda.

If Apple does seek a testing permit for its self-driving car, “it will have to sacrifice much of its legendary preference for secrecy,” writes the Guardian, noting that auto manufacturers have to disclose the make, model and vehicle identification number of cars they want to test during the application process, as well as share details of the vehicle’s autonomous features and capabilities.

“The fact that Apple is approaching the DMV now suggests that its autonomous vehicle, whatever it might be, is almost ready for public view,” the Guardian reports. 

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