“Just two weeks ago, we broke the news that Apple has 55 autonomous vehicles on the streets of California,” Serhat Kurt reports for macReports. “Today we learned that Apple has now 62 vehicles and 87 drivers, according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).”
“It seems Apple is aggressively developing its self-driving technology,” Kurt reports.
“There are total of 423 autonomous vehicles in California,” Kurt reports. “There were 409 vehicles two weeks ago.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: No.1 remains GM Cruise with 104 vehicles.
SEE ALSO:
Apple’s autonomous vehicle project may be closer to fruition than it appears – May 25, 2018
Google buys 20,000 SUVs, Apple gets two dozen VW vans – May 24, 2018
Volkswagen looks to Apple for electric-car design guidance – February 16, 2018
Apple said to develop car operating system in Canada – October 25, 2016
Apple scales back ‘Project Titan,’ effort no longer includes building own car – October 17, 2016
Apple’s Bob Mansfield reboots Apple Car project, lays off several dozen employees – September 10, 2016
South Korea company’s never-before-revealed battery technology expected to be Apple Car’s ‘secret weapon’ – August 9, 2016
Apple Car: Everything we know about Apple’s mysterious ‘Project Titan’ – July 29, 2016
Apple Car: An operating system licensed to other auto-makers? – July 29, 2016
Apple hires founder of QNX with Apple Car project increasing focus on self-driving software – July 28, 2016
Apple taps Bob Mansfield to oversee Apple Car project – July 25, 2016
Beleaguered Volkswagen hires expert in self-driving cars from Apple’s ‘Project Titan’ – November 10, 2015
That much? How thrilling. Just about two more than I have iPhones and Macs in my company.
Wait! Plus two HomePods.
Just don’t let them drive at night #BLIND
I am not sure what you mean by your post, trondude. It sounds like a joke, but with no “/s.”
Assuming that Apple is using a combination of active and passive sensors sensitive to multiple parts of the EM spectrum, then a self-driving car can “see” better in many respects than a human being. One big issue is weather (rain, for instance, will attenuate, scatter, and reflect visible and NIR radiation). Another is dirt – how do you keep the sensor optics sufficiently clean?
The single biggest advantage currently possessed by (most!) humans is in their ability to rapidly process situational awareness data and draw valid conclusions on the proper actions to take in terms of safely controlling the vehicle, even in off-nominal situations. I would expect that advantage to gradually decrease over time as AI technology evolves.
The single biggest advantage of self-driving vehicles is that the AI does not get sleepy or drunk or inattentive. If we decided to throw caution to the winds and pursue a rapid implementation of existing autonomous driving technologies in the U.S., then that fact, alone, would likely eliminate far more accidents than the AI would cause due to its limitations in adapting to off-nominal conditions, or failing to recognize an object or boundary.
Another advantage that self-driving cars will possess in the future is that they will be able to actively communicate and cooperate to proactively respond to potential traffic situations and hazards. Most human drivers look out for themselves first and everyone else last, which often results in aggressive, unpredictable, and unsafe driving behaviors.
If the roadways in the U.S. were standardized in terms of design and markings and consistently maintained in good condition, then autonomous vehicles would be far easier to implement. If the roadways in the U.S. were upgraded to include navigation support for autonomous vehicles, then there would be no question at all about implementing the technology ASAP.
Uber and Tesla have both been involved in recent accidents caused in part by night-driving limitations of AI. That’s what he means.
The accidents happened at night, but darkness was not a significant factor in the failure of the IA to avoid the collisions. That would probably have happened in daylight. Darkness may have been a factor in the failure of the driver to take over, and in the failure of the other party to stay out of the way.
I prosecuted DUI and other traffic crimes for almost 30 years. It was a commonplace that auto “accidents” are extremely rare. Most collisions are caused by human negligence, either by someone at the scene or in connection with design or maintenance of equipment.
Self-driving cars will certainly have crashes (which may make the concept commercially impractical), but I would bet it will be fewer crashes than are now caused by tired, distracted, or impaired human drivers.
There is no evidence to suggest that in cities that autonomous cars would be safer than humans. On wide open roads especially motorways day or night perhaps even winding country roads it might be the case, though again no proof as yet due to inadequate truly comparable evidence that is yet conclusive. As of last year BMW for example didn’t even test it’s cars away from motorways let alone truly on representative city streets and by that I don’t mean wide open boulevards. I think we have to be careful about the hype here. There is a massive amount of representative testing yet to do in a whole range of conditions before any claim that they are yet safer than human drivers in most let alone all scenarios. Highly controlled testing is far from representative of thousands of such vehicals working in a similar environment as thousands of human driven cars do now. Levels of unpredictability will creep in that will change perameters on a constant basis for years to come.
That’s a bit of a task. I wonder how many millions (and I’ll guess millions) of discrete roadways there are in the US. And the upgrade/maintenance costs could hit the trillions.
If the cars are gonna depend on the roads’ smarts autonomous vehicles not requiring a driver will be a long time coming – as humans would have to take control under all kinds of “off nominal” conditions.
However I imagine there will be a combination of technologies allowing them to link up on thoroughfares while relying on their own smarts on country byways, parking lots and long driveways…..
Google 600 test cars all over united States with different driving conditions and solution challanges.. pouring in data in Google data analytics..
.. Apple 62 in California.. mainly SF area
Should i be impressed or laugh?
Keeping same pace with the competition as they have with their AI efforts ..
Go Apple Go!
Or is it ‘Get with it Apple!’