Apple is joining the fiercely competitive race to design self-driving cars, raising the possibility that a company that has already re-shaped culture with its iPhone may try to transform transportation, too.Ending years of speculation, Apple\u2019s late entry into a crowded field was made official Friday with the disclosure that the California Department of Motor Vehicles had awarded a permit for the company to start testing its self-driving car technology on public roads in the state.<\/p>\n
The permit covers three vehicles \u2014 all 2015 Lexus RX 450h hybrid SUVs \u2014 and six individual drivers. California law requires people to be in a self-driving car who can take control if something goes wrong.<\/p>\n
APPLE GOES MOBILE … IN A NEW WAY<\/strong><\/p>\n Apple confirmed its arrival in the self-driving car market, but wouldn\u2019t discuss its intentions. Its interest in autonomous vehicle technology, however, has long been clear .<\/p>\n The Cupertino, California, company pointed to a statement that it issued in December. \u201cApple is investing heavily in machine learning and autonomous systems,\u201d the company said then. \u201cThere are many potential applications for these technologies, including the future of transportation.\u201d<\/p>\n Apple released that statement after Steve Kenner, a former Ford Motor executive who is now Apple\u2019s director of product integrity, notified federal regulators of the company\u2019s interest in self-driving carsin a letter.<\/p>\n Like others, Apple believes self-driving carscould ease congestion and save millions of people who die annually in traffic accidents often caused by drunk or distracted motorists.<\/p>\n Self-driving cars could also be a lucrative new market. And Apple has been searching for its next act for a while, one that will take it beyond its mainstay phones, tablets and personal computers.<\/p>\n A NEXT BIG THING<\/strong><\/p>\n Although iPhone\u2019s ongoing popularity has helped Apple remain the world\u2019s most valuable company, the company hasn\u2019t had a breakthrough product since the 2010 debut of the iPad, currently in the throes of a three-year sales slump. The dry spell has raised doubts as to whether Apple lost some of its trend-setting magic with the death of co-founder Steve Jobs in 2011.<\/p>\n Apple will be vying against 29 other companies that already have California permits to test self-driving cars. The list includes major automakers, including Ford, General Motors, BMW, Volkswagen and Tesla, as well as one of its biggest rivals in technology, Google, whose testing of self-driving cars has been spun off into an affiliate called Waymo.<\/p>\n Since Google began its work on self-driving vehicles eight years ago, Waymo\u2019s fleet of self-driving cars has logged more than 2 million miles on the road.<\/p>\n That means Apple has a long way to catch up in self-driving technology. But it has often been a follower in markets that it eventually revolutionized. It wasn\u2019t the first to introduce a digital music player, smartphone, or tablet before its iPod, iPhone and iPad came out.<\/p>\n DEEP POCKETS<\/strong><\/p>\n With $246 billion in cash, Apple also could easily afford to buy technology that accelerates its development of self-driving cars. There has been recurring speculation that Apple might eventually acquire Tesla, which has a market value of about $50 billion. Neither Apple nor Tesla has given any inkling that they\u2019re interested in joining forces, though.<\/p>\n Speculation about Apple\u2019s interest in expanding into automobiles began swirling in 2015 amid media reports that the company had begun secretly working on building its own electric car under the name project \u201cTitan.\u201d Apple never confirmed the existence of Titan, which is now believed to be dead.<\/p>\n AP<\/strong><\/p>\n Picture source: Alamy<\/p>\n Picture used for illustrative purposes alone<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Apple is joining the fiercely competitive race to design self-driving cars, raising the possibility that a company that has already re-shaped culture with its iPhone may try to transform transportation, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[29,31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3868"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3868"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3870,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3868\/revisions\/3870"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kt10.khaleejtimes.ae\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}