by PortableOne | Saturday, September 19, 2015 | 0 comment(s)

Apple talks self-driving cars with California regulators

According to a recent report by news site The Guardian, Apple has met with officials from the California Department of Motor Vehicles, on Friday September 17th. Items on the one-hour meeting’s agenda included “autonomous vehicles”. The Cupertino tech giant has been the subject of speculations, hinting at Apple’s interest in building a self-driving car, to compete with the already successful pilot program already pioneered by Google, and soon to be followed by Uber.

Apple self driving car

Mike Maletic, a senior legal advisor at Apple Inc. opened the meeting, which included DMV director Bernard Soriano, and chief of strategic planning Stephanie Dougherty. Soriano and Dougherty are also sponsoring California’s autonomous vehicle project, together with deputy director of the department of motor vehicles, Brian Soublet.

The meeting appears to have occurred in the wake of last month’s disclosure of Apple looking to secure a disused military base near San Francisco, where the company is planning to use a test site for Project Titan, the code name for Apple’s project regarding self driving vehicles.

Apple began Project Titan last year, but up until recently, the project has been under a tight lid, with the most popular theory hinting to the deployment of vehicles designed to take street view imaging for Apple Maps.

DMV was expected to draft new rules in regard to self driving vehicles in the first quarter of 2015, however no guidelines have been made public yet. By such token, the meeting between Apple and DMV could speed up the process, as the future of self-driving vehicles is beginning to take shape.

No comment was released after the meeting, however the department did mention that “the Apple meeting was to review [the] DMV’s autonomous vehicle regulations.”.

At this time over 10 companies have been awarded permits to test drive autonomous vehicles in California, the latest of which include Honda and BMW.

Traditionally, Apple has a history of secrecy regarding all of its products, however, once Apple requests its own permit to test self-driving cars, all details in regard to the projects will have to be public domain, as the company will be required to detail make, model and the vehicle’s identification number, as well as the name of the test drivers.

Detailed procedures in regard to maintenance and repairs to these vehicles will also need to be part of the report. Most importantly, all reports of accidents or “disengagement”, when a vehicle relinquishes control to the driver unexpectedly, must also be made public.

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