California Department of Motor Vehicles Report
Apple self-driving vehicle leaves once every 233 km
Although improved from the previous year… #1 Waymo’s churn rate is 48,280 km
Apple Car Rendered Image/Photo = Apple Insider Capture
It turns out that Apple’s autonomous driving technology is still at a lower level than its competitors. In the industry, it is predicted that it will be difficult for Apple to commercialize autonomous vehicles within the next five days with its own technology.
On the 9th (local time), Bloomberg News reported that Apple conducted an autonomous driving test of about 3,263 km (18,805 miles) in California last year, citing a report published by the US California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).
This mileage is a significant increase from the 2019 test, which was only about 12,140 km (7544 miles). The number of test vehicles also increased from 66 to 69. The number of departures was also slightly reduced. In 2019, it increased to about 233km (145 miles) last year, if it departed once every 189km (118 miles).
Apple’s self-driving car did not have any accidents during the test last year. 2019 was the last accident in Apple’s self-driving test vehicle. Since 2017, Apple has been testing autonomous driving technology through the’Lexus RX450h’, a sports utility vehicle (SUV) equipped with a number of sensors and cameras.
However, there is an analysis that there is still a long way to go compared to competitors.
According to Bloomberg News, General Motors’ self-driving car startup’Cruise’ reported a total of 27 departures in the same document for about 12,29194 km (777,000 miles). It is about once every 45898 km (28,520 miles). In particular, the exit rate of’Waymo’, a subsidiary of Google Alphabet, reached about 48,280 km (30,000 miles), ranking first.
Bloomberg News analyzed that “taking into consideration Apple’s lack of self-driving technology such as high churn rates, it will be difficult for Apple cars to be released within the next five years, aimed at general consumers.” Earlier, on the 8th of last month, the media cited an anonymous source and said that it would take at least five years to launch an autonomous electric vehicle according to the roadmap set by Apple.
Meanwhile, since 2014, Apple has been developing autonomous driving systems by promoting’Project Titan’, an autonomous vehicle development project. Then, it has recently changed its target to launch an autonomous electric vehicle and is conducting related research.
To this end, Apple is actively making efforts to secure technology related to autonomous driving. It is reported that Apple, which invested 1 billion dollars (about 1.1 trillion won) in Didichushing in 2016, has recently negotiated with Hyundai Motor Group, Volkswagen, and Japanese companies.
In this regard, Apple Insider, a media outlet specializing in Apple, cited the investment bank’s Weatherbush report, saying that Apple will officially announce its manufacturing partner for Apple’s iCar in the first half of this year. The media said, “Although negotiations with Apple and Hyundai Motor were stopped, Hyundai Motor’s EV production platform’E-GMP’ is still suitable for Apple.”
However, as announced by Hyundai Motor Company, it was analyzed that Volkswagen could be a promising alternative when negotiations between the two companies cannot resume. Volkswagen’s modular electric vehicle platform can easily integrate new autonomous vehicle models.
Seongsu Bae, reporter Hankyung.com [email protected]
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