Apple Inc. grabbing the wheel with self-driving cars.
California’s Department of Motor Vehicles reported on its website Friday that Apple received a permit to test autonomous vehicles. The tech giant joins a list of 29 other companies also test-driving self-driving cars, which includes Tesla, Honda and Google.
Up until now, Apple had only suggested it had plans to jump into the self-driving car market in a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration late last year.
“Apple uses machine learning to make its products and services smarter, more intuitive, and more personal,” the company said in the letter. “The company is investing heavily in the study of machine learning and automation, and is excited about the potential of automated systems in many areas, including transportation.”
Twelve states and Washington, D.C., have passed legislation related to self-driving cars, notes the National Conference of State Legislatures. In California, testing self-driving cars requires a company to prove it has $5 million in insurance and that all test drivers are trained, according to the NCSL.
Many car companies are looking to bring fleets of semi-autonomous cars to the streets in just a few years which still allow for some human control, but full automation likely won’t be far behind. Boston Consulting Group predicts that by 2035, there may be 12 million fully autonomous units sold a year worldwide.
