Patrik Siwek While we only knew self-driving cars from sci-fi movies a few years ago, in recent years they are slowly but surely becoming a reality. It is therefore not surprising that the biggest technological giants are racing to develop them and try to show that they are the ones who can turn this previously unrealistic idea into reality. And it is the Cupertino giant that is also vying for this first place.
As Apple itself confirmed in the words of CEO Tim Cook, autonomous vehicles are the subject of its development and research. This is not the development of the vehicles themselves as such, but instead Apple is focusing on technologies that should be available for third-party vehicles as optional accessories. Apple would probably be able to create its own vehicle, but the financial requirement to create an effective network of dealerships and services is so significant that it could be inefficient for Apple. Even if the balance on the company's accounts is close to two hundred billion US dollars, the investment associated with the sale and service of its own vehicles might not begin to return in the foreseeable future, and Apple would thus only use up part of its cash.
Tim Cook confirmed his interest in the automotive industry in June last year, and Apple itself is targeting it. Tim Cook literally said that Apple is working on autonomous systems for cars. In 2016, the company scaled back its earlier ambitious plans, when it really wanted to rank alongside automakers such as Tesla, and rethought the development of the entire vehicle to develop systems for autonomous vehicles. However, we have not learned more from Tim Cook or anyone else from Apple.
Newly, however, thanks to car registrations, we know that Apple has expanded its three test vehicles that are driving in California from the 24 other Lexus RX450hs that Apple has registered for autonomous vehicle testing directly with the Department of Transportation. California is relatively open to testing new technologies, but on the other hand, any company interested in testing must meet strict safety criteria and register their vehicles directly with the department. Of course, this also applies to Apple. It was according to the registrations that the magazine found out Bloomberg, that there are currently 27 cars testing Apple's autonomous systems on the roads in California. In addition, Apple does not directly own nearly three dozen Lexuses, but rents them from the well-known company Hertz Global Holding, which is one of the world's largest players in the field of vehicle rentals.
However, Apple will have to come up with a truly revolutionary system that can impress automakers so much that they will be willing to integrate it into their vehicles. The development of technologies for autonomous driving is not only taken care of by companies such as Tesla, Google or Waymo, but also by traditional car companies such as Volkswagen. For example, the new Audi A8 offers Level 3 autonomous driving, which means that the system can completely take control of the vehicle at speeds of up to 60 km/h and does not require any driver intervention. A very similar system is also offered by BMW or, for example, Mercedes, in their new 5 Series models. However, these systems still need to be perceived and it is necessary to state that even the car companies themselves present them in this way, as making driving more pleasant. They are mostly used in convoys when the driver does not have to constantly step between the brake and gas, but the vehicles will start, stop and start again according to the current situation. For example, the new cars from Mercedes can even evaluate the situation in the convoy and move from lane to lane themselves.
So Apple will have to offer something that will be very revolutionary indeed, but the question remains what. The software itself is not too expensive to install, and automakers can integrate it into almost any vehicle in the world. However, the problem is that most cheap vehicles do not have a sufficient number of radars, sensors, cameras and other necessities that are needed for autonomous driving at least level 3, which is already a really interesting assistant. So it will be difficult for Apple to supply only software similar to CarPlay, which would Fabii turned into an autonomous vehicle. However, imagining that Apple will supply carmakers with sensors and other things needed to build an autonomous vehicle is also quite strange. So we will see how the whole project of autonomous vehicles will turn out and what we will meet directly on the roads as a result.
