Apple meets with California DMV officials to discuss autonomous vehicles
A handful of high-ranking California Department of Motor Vehicles officials met with Apple employees in April to discuss facets of the company's ongoing autonomous car program, according to a report on Tuesday.
Documents acquired by macReports through a public information request show at least six DMV officials, including Director Jean Shiomoto, were present at a meeting that took place on April 2 at Apple's One Infinite Loop headquarters in Cupertino.
Representing Apple at the confab was director of product integrity Steve Kenner, an executive known to have close ties with Apple's autonomous vehicle project. In 2016, Kenner penned a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposing a policy update that would grant automotive industry newcomers opportunities to test their self-driving vehicles on public roads.
What exactly was discussed during the two-hour meeting is unknown, but the publication notes DMV Deputy Director Bernard Soriano in a follow up email thanked Kenner for his time and commented on an issue that came up during the sit-down.
According to a copy of the email, Kenner or another Apple employee asked about turnaround times for test drivers enrolled in the EPN, or Employee Pull Notice, program, a system that promotes public safety through an ongoing review of driver records. Soriano confirmed that California does not have a "backlog" of EPN requests, though his comments suggest Apple is running into problems getting additional drivers green-lit for testing.
Apple first filed an application to test autonomous vehicles on California roads last year, saying it planned to certify six drivers to pilot three modified Lexus RX450h SUV test platforms. The company has grown its self-driving automobile initiative substantially over the ensuing months, as a recent report claims Apple now has the second-largest fleet of test cars in the state with a total of 45 vehicles.
In addition to putting more cars on the road, Apple last August upgraded to newer versions of the Lexus SUV, complete with updated sensor equipment including advanced LiDAR and GPS hardware.
Apple's Autonomous Vehicle Tester (AVT) Program is an extension of efforts to build a branded self-driving car. Known as "Project Titan," the initiative dates back to at least 2015, but was scuttled in 2016 after hitting a number of roadblocks, including the departure of its team leader.
Apple has since refocused efforts on the less ambitious goal of developing self-driving software and supporting hardware that might be used in conjunction with third-party platforms. How the resulting technology will be deployed is unclear, but rumors last year claim the company is working to launch an experimental autonomous employee shuttle service dubbed the Palo Alto to Infinite Loop, or PAIL. Other opportunities include integration with ride-hailing services like Chinese firm Didi, with which Apple has strong ties as a major investor.
Documents acquired by macReports through a public information request show at least six DMV officials, including Director Jean Shiomoto, were present at a meeting that took place on April 2 at Apple's One Infinite Loop headquarters in Cupertino.
Representing Apple at the confab was director of product integrity Steve Kenner, an executive known to have close ties with Apple's autonomous vehicle project. In 2016, Kenner penned a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposing a policy update that would grant automotive industry newcomers opportunities to test their self-driving vehicles on public roads.
What exactly was discussed during the two-hour meeting is unknown, but the publication notes DMV Deputy Director Bernard Soriano in a follow up email thanked Kenner for his time and commented on an issue that came up during the sit-down.
According to a copy of the email, Kenner or another Apple employee asked about turnaround times for test drivers enrolled in the EPN, or Employee Pull Notice, program, a system that promotes public safety through an ongoing review of driver records. Soriano confirmed that California does not have a "backlog" of EPN requests, though his comments suggest Apple is running into problems getting additional drivers green-lit for testing.
Apple first filed an application to test autonomous vehicles on California roads last year, saying it planned to certify six drivers to pilot three modified Lexus RX450h SUV test platforms. The company has grown its self-driving automobile initiative substantially over the ensuing months, as a recent report claims Apple now has the second-largest fleet of test cars in the state with a total of 45 vehicles.
In addition to putting more cars on the road, Apple last August upgraded to newer versions of the Lexus SUV, complete with updated sensor equipment including advanced LiDAR and GPS hardware.
Apple's Autonomous Vehicle Tester (AVT) Program is an extension of efforts to build a branded self-driving car. Known as "Project Titan," the initiative dates back to at least 2015, but was scuttled in 2016 after hitting a number of roadblocks, including the departure of its team leader.
Apple has since refocused efforts on the less ambitious goal of developing self-driving software and supporting hardware that might be used in conjunction with third-party platforms. How the resulting technology will be deployed is unclear, but rumors last year claim the company is working to launch an experimental autonomous employee shuttle service dubbed the Palo Alto to Infinite Loop, or PAIL. Other opportunities include integration with ride-hailing services like Chinese firm Didi, with which Apple has strong ties as a major investor.
Comments
Even if I am wrong about that, if there ever had been an Apple car and a Google car to choose from, that decision would take less than a second to make.
I can see why car manufacturers would go with CarPlay: they want a connection to the iPhone. I’m just not sure how Apple would convince them to go with their autonomous drive system. Surely this is something that the manufacturers would want to control themselves, and not leave it to Apple or Google.
IIRC the original article mentioned Apple leaving a few dozen people go, without showing concete evidence as to whom was dismissed. And yet previous reporting showed Apple hiring many hundreds of automotive hardware engineers and specialists. Red herring? But.... the leader on the project changed? This is expected if he’s not performing well. That they apparently refocused more on the software side of things only shows how important they deem this side of things and let’s face it, it does not stop other hardware car guys at Apple from continuing hardware work. It just doesn’t. You people are dreaming if you think Apple are waiting to perfect their self-driving stuff before working on car hardware. Such a difficult project would by its nature require a two-pronged approach.
They may at best have split up the two teams (self-drive and other car hardware design) for a while, but they aren't waiting around to begin hardware. It would be a multi-year hardware problem and they couldn't afford to waste six months.
I can see the logic in the approach chasm suggests. Most car makers are not computer experts by a long way, let alone into AI, this goes far beyond 'your front left tire is flat' or 'you need a service'. One thing for sure, whatever it is Apple is going to come out with will be followed very quickly with a Google knock off (marketed by Samsung maybe).
Hey you may be right, maybe Google will copy Apple and start their own autonomous car program. Maybe even use the same Lexus RZ450h SUV's that Apple does for their testing. Wouldn't put it past'em. What are the chances? Heck Google will probably copy Apple and start selling smart-speakers too.
Google isn't copying Apple's autonomy testing. It has zippity to do with "FIRST!" Surprised you didn't see the silliness of his post yourself and instead took issue with mine. Wait, maybe not so surprised.
i don’t know how anyone wouldn’t interpret all of that, as well as all of the hires in automotive technology, including the senior team from one of the advanced auto battery manufacturers, as being on line with R&D regarding a car. They’ve also been working with Magna, a vehicle manufacturer who has designed, and built cars for companies such as Mercedes and BMW.
what else could you think?
my hope is that they’re building confidence in their work, and will accelerate it once some hurdles are jumped. What I would like to see is them investing in Magna. That would show their direction. But then again, maybe they don’t want to show their direction, at least, not yet.
ive always agreed that Apple would have a hard sell to other manufacturers if they were to sell some sort of solution.
I can’t see it. Car manufacturers have been working with computers in their cars for a long time now, far longer than Apple has. They also have the proper real time operating systems needed, which, as far as we know, Apple doesn’t.
its not a matter of thinking that if Apple is doing it, it will automatically work, and be better. It might, and it might not. Apple is they neophyte here, not the auto makers.
we’ve just been reading that Toyota, the worlds second largest auto maker, put Apple’s Auto play on just one model car, though it’s now agreed to put it in several in a higher end line. Google has been trying to convince then to use their infotainment system too, but Toyota hasn’t been interested. The articles on this have said that Toyota, which is a somewhat conservative company, doesn’t want to put CarPlay in their vehicles, and all it wants to know is whether the car is moving, why would it want to put Google’s system in, which wants to know a whole raft of things about what the car (and thereby, its driver) is doing?
a system that actually controls the car is vastly more invasive. It needs to know almost every parameter of what the car is doing, and something of what the “driver” is, and isn’t doing, and when. Where does all of that info go? Does it all go to the car maker, does it go to the system maker or does it go to both? Both can make the argument that they need that data to improve their product.
but auto makers don’t want to share that information. They’ve been stating that for some time. That’s a major disconnect. So Google has Waymo, which is going to either buy cars that they will modify, along with the manufacturer, and not sell their system outright to auto makers. Other car makers are going it alone.
where will Apple fit into this? Selling it to other auto companies? I don’t see how. Anyone who writes that Apple is planning to do that is ignorant of the automobile industry. Apple will see some major problem in trying to convince companies to do that. They tried to get BMW to design and build a car together, do people think they will convince them, or others to buy their own nav system?
Since you also mentioned Waymo(Google) they've announced a partnership with Tata Motors-owned Jaguar on supplying their autonomous system for use in a new Jaguar vehicle and reportedly has Honda on-board as a production partner for a delivery vehicle. On top of that "thousands" of Chrysler's are going into service, many of them within the next couple of months, as completely driverless ride-sharing taxis. There's a lot of stuff going on in the space, and much of it happening quite quickly.
Apple will have to market and sell their own vehicles or buy and modify someone else’s vehicles to offer their system (or service) to the public.