Daily Slideshow: There Are Now 27 Self Driving Lexus Cars on the Road
Apple is looking to make strides in the autonomous software movement and they are doing so with the help of the luxury brand Lexus' RX series.
In for a penny... in for a pound
Apple has been building up its test fleet of self-driving cars to the sweet tune of 27 Lexus RX450h hybrid SUVs. Apple initially had registered just three vehicles for testing purposes with California's DMV in April of last year. In less than a year since then, Apple has gone ahead and expanded that fleet and acquired 24 more Lexus SUVs in an effort to accelerate efforts to catch up to competitors such as Alphabet Inc.'s Waymo.
Project what now?
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, acknowledged for the first time in June of 2017 that the company has a team working on developing autonomous car tech codenamed Project Titan. However, Apple has declined comment about the latest DMV registrations that occurred from July 2017 through January 2018. We do know from various reports that Apple has done away with plans to build a new vehicle from scratch and instead are focusing on building autonomous software.
The race to autonomy
Silicon Valley-based companies have jumped in the automotive industry as the rise in electric vehicle ownership has been bringing down manufacturing and development costs. This shift towards autonomously controlled cars spurred a demand for higher scale software expertise in a race to the goal line of Level 5 full automation. While 27 autonomous vehicles may seem like a decent number to you and me, that number is still well behind other competitors like Waymo who has hundreds of vehicles in multiple states on the road.
Pivoting and perspective
Formerly led by Steve Zadesky, Project Titan was later handed over to SVP of Hardware Engineering Dan Riccio and then to longtime exec Bob Mansfield. Under Mansfield's watch, the team was allegedly dropped down in size and had efforts refocused to self-driving software and support hardware. Apple's test vehicles have been spotted out equipped with standard Velodyne-made LIDAR sensors, several radar units, and a number of cameras all encased in a very Apple-like white plastic.
Who's driving who?
What many folks don't know about many of these autonomous test vehicles are that there will usually be two sets of steering in the cabin. The one on the left is to drive the car normally while the other one is there for the car to drive itself without the presence of someone in the chair. Maybe it's to trick the system into driving as if no one is there or maybe it's there to give occupants the option of sitting on either side of the vehicle if they so wish. In any case, there needs to be a driver inside and ready to take over should an emergency arise for whatever the reason.
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