Apple grows self-driving test fleet to 55 vehicles as project remains in shadows

Apple now has 55 autonomous test vehicles and 83 authorized drivers, California's Department of Motor Vehicles has confirmed, indicating that work on the company's mysterious car platform is accelerating.

In California at least the new number puts Apple ahead of Drive.Ai, Tesla, and even Alphabet's Waymo, which is rapidly advancing towards a commercial ridehailing service. The leader in the state according to macReports is GM Cruise, with 104 vehicles.

Apple's reported fleet size earlier this year was 45. The company has yet to apply for a permit to test without backup drivers, but those only became available in California last month.

Businesses around the world are racing to be among the first with fully self-driving vehicles. The technology is considered the future of the auto and ridehailing industries, and lucrative for any company that can establish itself as a frontrunner.

Apple's own goals are still unclear. While it was at one point thought be designing a full-fledged electric car, its work has allegedly narrowed to creating a platform, possibly with ridehailing in mind. Unless the company engages in a major investments though it will probably have to partner with one or more outside firms, since it lacks the expertise and infrastructure to run its own Waymo-style ridehailing.

Building a self-designed vehicle would be even more complex, since it would need to partner with manufacturers, supply parts for decades, and ensure easy access to repairs. Unless it made an announcement well in advance it would also be difficult to keep the product a surprise.

36 Comments

nunzy 662 comments · 6 Years

About 6 years ago

Apple is beating Google on this. Tesla too.

gatorguy 24608 comments · 13 Years

nunzy said:

Apple is beating Google on this. Tesla too.

Apple has yet to even apply for a full driverless permit in California AFAIK while others have already moved on to other states and regions including winter snow testing, and operating fully driverless vehicles. At this point they are not "beating" the companies who already have driverless vehicles on the road and preparing for commercial use this year. But that does not mean Apple is necessarily behind either. It's still early.

winston2010 98 comments · 9 Years

nunzy said:

Apple is beating Google on this. Tesla too.

Not necessary. Tesla might already been collecting data from existing Tesla customers, and Google might be feeding Waymo with data from Waze and Android users.

Soli 9981 comments · 9 Years

gatorguy said:

nunzy said:

Apple is beating Google on this. Tesla too.

Apple has yet to even apply for a full driverless permit in California AFAIK while others have already moved on to other states and regions including winter snow testing, and operating fully driverless vehicles. At this point they are not "beating" the companies who already have driverless vehicles on the road and preparing for commercial use this year. But that does not mean Apple is necessarily behind either. It's still early.

He's trolling (poorly). He's been making simple, ridiculously pro-Apple comments on nearly every thread for awhile now.

MacPro 19838 comments · 18 Years

gatorguy said:

nunzy said:

Apple is beating Google on this. Tesla too.

Apple has yet to even apply for a full driverless permit in California AFAIK while others have already moved on to other states and regions including winter snow testing, and operating fully driverless vehicles. At this point they are not "beating" the companies who already have driverless vehicles on the road and preparing for commercial use this year. But that does not mean Apple is necessarily behind either. It's still early.

Do you Google guys know if Warren Buffet was read in on the real story?