Apple gets approval to test self-driving cars on California roads. 蘋果獲得批准在加州道路上測試自駕車
蘋果獲得批准在加州道路上測試自駕車
Apple's not-so-secret plans to create self-driving car technology just received a new jolt with approval by the California DMV.
On Friday, the Department of Motor Vehicles updated its website with permit approvals for testing self-driving vehicles on public roads, and the iPhone-maker was one of them. "The permit covers three vehicles, all 2015 Lexus RX450h, and six drivers," a DMV spokeswoman told Business Insider.
The news comes following reports earlier this year that showed the Cupertino company was scaling back efforts in its secretive self-driving car project, project Titan, which has never been officially announced by Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL). Executives had reportedly given a deadline for the team to show feasibility by the end of 2017.
The DMV's rules state that any company that wants to use California roads to test its autonomous technologies must first apply to the California DMV. Other tech companies that have already been approved include Baidu, Google, NextEV, Udacity, Nvidia, and, of course, Tesla.
Apple was reportedly working in unmarked car labs in Sunnyvale.
After a series of shifts within Titan's strategy and leadership last fall, Apple, in October, was found to have drastically scaled back its ambitions to create its own self-driving car, deciding, instead, to focus on autonomous software.
The shift in direction resulted in hundreds of members of the 1,000-person car team being pulled off the project and reassigned to other areas at the company. Veteran Apple executive Bob Mansfield was also brought in as the commander of the project at the time.
Apple executives gave the car team a deadline of late 2017 to show tangible results of a self-driving system in order to decide on the product's direction, according to Bloomberg.
Jennifer Elias is a technology reporter for the Silicon Valley Business Journal
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