Cars —

Is Apple self-driving car software coming? DMV permit suggests so

New permit drives speculation about company’s self-driving car aspirations.

Apple wants to get on those California roads.
Apple wants to get on those California roads.

On Friday, California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) updated its website to reflect that Apple now has a permit to test self-driving cars on public roads.

Apple has been hiring automotive experts—particularly those with experience in autonomous driving—for years. (In 2015, Tesla CEO Elon Musk even taunted Apple by saying, “If you don’t make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple.”) But Apple has long kept quiet about its aspirations. That began to change in December, when the company wrote a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration saying that it was “investing heavily” in machine learning to support autonomous systems, especially in transportation.

The update on the California DMV website confirms that after years of speculation, Apple is serious about building self-driving car software.

Getting an autonomous-car testing permit with the California DMV requires that a company fill out an application to test its technology and take out an insurance policy for any vehicles equipped with it. Companies testing self-driving cars must keep logs of disengagements, or times when the car had to be taken out of self-driving mode for safety or other reasons.

California’s relatively strict testing rules haven’t deterred companies from seeking testing permits. Uber was a notable hold-out—it refused to apply for a self-driving permit in December after it launched its self-driving car pilot program. California then revoked the registrations of the company’s cars, so Uber took its test cars to Arizona, where no such registration is required. But a few months later, Uber filed all the appropriate paperwork anyway and is currently permitted to test its technology on California roads.

According to Bloomberg, Apple’s California permit “covers three 2015 Lexus RX540h SUVs and six drivers.” Ars contacted Apple for more information, but we have not yet received a response.

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