Apple has once again increased the size of its autonomous vehicle (AV) “Project Titan” test-driving team. In May, macReports reported that the team had been reduced to 145 drivers, down from 201 in March. This was the first time in two years that Apple had decreased the size of its testing team, and it was a significant cut. However, according to the California DMV, the team now numbers 152 drivers, meaning that Apple has added seven new drivers in recent months.
Meanwhile, Apple’s fleet size has remained steady since March at 66 test vehicles.
Other notable changes in California’s AV scene include the addition of another manufacturer licensed to deploy driverless vehicles, Mercedes. In June, Mercedes became only the fourth manufacturer licensed to have a driverless vehicle on the road. The other three, Nuro, Cruise and Waymo, have been licensed since 2021. Apple has still not applied for a driverless permit.
Since April, Apple has had one more collision: On May 11, 2023, One of Apple’s Lexus test vehicles was rear-ended while stopped at a stop sign.
MacDailyNews Take: Project Titan lives!
Please help support MacDailyNews. Click or tap here to support our independent tech blog. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
Once it exists, self-driving will be a part of CarPlay for the foreseeable future. That’s why a boatload of Project Titan car-creators have come and gone over the years. They did what they could do, and they saw a physical Apple Car as at least 8 years away. We won’t see one until 2030 at the earliest. If that is in the cards we’ll hear about it in 2028 or so. I think self-driving might be achievable on interstates by 2026. My guess is that one vehicle will want to have some kind of contact with the other vehicles nearby while self-driving. Apple CarPlay will be best positioned to do this, since it will be in many vehicles, while bespoke systems like Tesla, Rivian, and GM (when and if they can achieve it) won’t automatically be able to talk to other vehicles.
It will never exist as a car, at most software accessories for existing vehicles, if that.
An autonomous car interests me about as much as an EV. None. I love to drive.
Stockton Rush had a project Titan which sadly imploded – he cut so many corners, it was truly sub optimal.
He was the opposite of Apple, and he was so bad he was a billion times worse than Google.
Apple’s Project Titan will be a dazzling winner. It really is that simple.
The “father” of autonomous vehicle computing gave up on the consumer side of AV. Why, did he give up on consumer? Because, humans are unpredictable. A computer can’t figure out the turning onto oncoming traffic. Some of us speed, some of us drive slow. The AI inside the circuitboard basically had a nervous breakdown and just crashed its circuits on how the humans drive. The researcher decided to focus on mining and the heavy machinery in the mines because it’s the prefect place for AV. With its predictable mundane movement’s and most importantly that it’s repetitive. Scoop.. Dump.. scoop.. dump.. etc.. AV in the wide open space called roads is just chaos with unpredictable human drivers. If AV is ever release as a consumer product then all cars, trucks and the 18 wheel semis will all have to be AV. If the pandemic taught us anything, we don’t like being told to do something for the betterment of humanity. So, don’t expect AVs on public roads for awhile, if ever.