Apple self-driving test program grows to over 200 drivers

Comments

• Reply 1 of 9

  h2p Posts: 329member

  March 23, 2023 9:12AM

  It is encouraging that Something is happening. It’s been 4 years since I saw an Apple Lexus on the roads of a northwestern Chicago suburb. I assumed it was just Apple Maps but it probably had autonomous driving equipment, why not. 

  
  

  The rumored steering wheel may simply be the law. Or the mindset of the horse and buggy folks, not ready to give up their old ways (like me).

  
• Reply 2 of 9

  tipoo Posts: 1,142member

  March 23, 2023 12:53PM

  I'm still struggling to see how Apple racks up the data collection miles of Tesla without hundreds of thousands of vehicles on the road with the hardware in place and the software running in shadow mode. 200 vehicles is very small.  
   
  Edit: Actually even smaller, that's just drivers, 67 vehicles 

  edited March 2023
• Reply 3 of 9

  badmonk Posts: 1,293member

  March 23, 2023 1:29PM

  tipoo said:

  I'm still struggling to see how Apple racks up the data collection miles of Tesla without hundreds of thousands of vehicles on the road with the hardware in place and the software running in shadow mode. 200 vehicles is very small. 

  Undoubtedly because Apple will be using LIDAR and not cameras for autonomous driving which is becoming a glaring flaw of Tesla’s autonomous driving program.

  
• Reply 4 of 9

  tipoo Posts: 1,142member

  March 23, 2023 1:34PM

  badmonk said:

  tipoo said:

  I'm still struggling to see how Apple racks up the data collection miles of Tesla without hundreds of thousands of vehicles on the road with the hardware in place and the software running in shadow mode. 200 vehicles is very small. 

  Undoubtedly because Apple will be using LIDAR and not cameras for autonomous driving which is becoming a glaring flaw of Tesla’s autonomous driving program.

  
  Because those using lidar are magically ahead? You still have to train a massive neural network on massive amounts of data regardless of the approach, there's no sensor you can add that gets to autonomy without that step. 

  
• Reply 5 of 9

  jfabula1 Posts: 138member

  March 23, 2023 2:53PM

  badmonk said:

  tipoo said:

  I'm still struggling to see how Apple racks up the data collection miles of Tesla without hundreds of thousands of vehicles on the road with the hardware in place and the software running in shadow mode. 200 vehicles is very small. 

  Undoubtedly because Apple will be using LIDAR and not cameras for autonomous driving which is becoming a glaring flaw of Tesla’s autonomous driving program.

  You must be a Tesla FSD beta driver to really experience how mind boggling it is to navigate in auto pilot. Except in severe weather conditions, it will
  disable it for you, automatically….no Lidar? It just really works….whatever you read or watch in youtube is simply their opinion.
• Reply 6 of 9

  geospatial Posts: 25member

  March 23, 2023 9:03PM

  There are two schools of thought on how a vehicle can maintain its position and see the fluid changes occurring during a drive. One is the concept of where the vehicle sensors are trying to see everything in realtime and making the split second decisions on the fly.  The other is to use a highly accurate driving map which gives the autonomous system a knowledge of the infrastructure. A sensor package then can be focused only on what is not already in the map and compare what is different to what is already known. Way fewer CPU cycles for the control unit.
  
  It can be compared to how we drive to work each day without a map. We have all of the directions and turns embedded in our memories. That allows us to focus on the other vehicles and non motorized mobile objects who's movements can't be readily predicted and adjust accordingly. Way less overhead for our brains.
  
  Just a guess but I would think that Apple is using the second method as they have a very valuable asset known as Apple Maps. The organization I am with is collecting asset and pavement data for DOTs across the country. We use that same raw data to make HAD Maps for several of the top AV test facilities in the country. If you take a close look at how the Apple Maps collection vehicles are set up, they are doing the exact same thing and the data they are creating could be rendered into digital twins for both highly accurate driving maps and augmented reality backgrounds. They are very similar outputs. 

  edited March 2023
• Reply 7 of 9

  geospatial Posts: 25member

  March 23, 2023 9:25PM

  I forgot to point out, Apple Maps is the Apple Car's secret weapon. They have 3D data from almost everywhere. That gives them a step up on anybody else's AV platform that utilizes embedded maps. It is way more miles than anyone other than Waymo. They also control the iPhone technology and that gives them the mechanism for connecting their vehicle to everything else, including the infrastructure and other Apple Cars. It might even put them a few steps ahead of Tesla in autonomous vehicle driving reliability. Think of Apple Maps as the digital rail that the autonomous Apple cars travel on's 
  
  It is foolish to think that Apple's plan is not well thought out. Taking their time and staying quiet is a great strength. Whatever they plan to do, it will be pretty sound and you are all going to want one. Just hope they come in a color other than white.

  
• Reply 8 of 9

  lolliver Posts: 494member

  March 24, 2023 3:39AM

  The comments from @geospatial are some of the most insightful I have read in relation to the potential for an Apple Car. Of course we won't know for sure until/if Apple releases something. But this theory makes the most sense to me.