Apple’s Self-Driving Market

Apple’s Self-Driving Market

In April 2017, Apple received its first permit to test self-driving cars on California roads, now having 45 permits almost  a year later. Apple is now second behind General Motors’ Cruise company, which has 110 self-driving car permits in California, claims the California Department of Motor Vehicles. 

Apple is now testing more vehicles than its top rivals, including Tesla with 39 permits, Uber with 29 permits, and Alphabet’s Waymo with only 24; they had more than 100 in June 2017. Self-driving car technology has become popular over the past few years among major technology companies, with many of them betting that autonomous cars requiring little to no human interaction is the way of the future. These companies are also hoping their technology will keep passengers safer than human-driven vehicles.

Yet, self-driving cars likely won’t be available to consumers for at least a couple of years. For now, testing is critical for all of those companies to get their technologies ready for the “way of the future.”