New reports have revealed that the autonomous car program Apple is working on is so large that it surpasses the efforts of Tesla and Mercedes in this area.
Rumors abound of Apple entering the automotive field, but they have died down since its peak in 2021 when it sent out rumors of Apple teaming up with Kia, and since then Toyota and Porsche have been competing with Kia, but aside from a few meetings and whispers here and there, we’re still a long way from knowing what Apple’s “iCar” car looks like.
However, we now know that Apple is still pushing forward with its plans to bring an intelligent car to market. And in a move that would certainly compete with Tesla, Apple seems to be putting its weight and technical expertise into the autonomous car development program.
According to a new report, and based on the latest data from the California DMV autonomous vehicle program, the number of Apple drivers for autonomous models has steadily increased.
Where the number of drivers for Apple’s prototype cars has become 201 drivers, while the fleet of its autonomous cars is distinguished by about 67 cars. This is a much larger share than Tesla, which shows only 59 drivers on 14 cars. Apple’s autonomous fleet in California is also larger than Mercedes-Benz’s, which employs 179 drivers for about 55 cars.
However, Apple still lags behind Waymo (971 drivers and 326 cars), Cruze (414 drivers and 709 cars), and Zoox (1,021 drivers and 167 cars), while Nvidia has a higher number of drivers with 262 but fewer cars with only 13 cars.
Other information from the report indicates that Apple’s autonomous cars have been involved in 16 accidents – the last of which was a minor accident with the curb – that occurred while the car was manually operated by Apple’s human driver!
So while Apple remains mum about its possible entry into the automotive world, we at least know that its test team is growing.
Although Apple has not found a partner to produce the car, a report late last year indicated that the project was aiming to launch in 2026 and that the Apple car, if launched on the market, would target the $100,000 price range, making it a direct competitor for Tesla Model S and Mercedes-Benz EQS.
