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Apple is building a self-driving car in Silicon Valley, and is scouting for secure locations in the San Francisco Bay area to test it, the Guardian has learned. Documents show the oft-rumoured Apple car project appears to be further along than many suspected.
In May, engineers from Apple’s secretive Special Project group met with officials from GoMentum Station, a 2,100-acre former naval base near San Francisco that is being turned into a high-security testing ground for autonomous vehicles.
In correspondence obtained by the Guardian under a public records act request, Apple engineer Frank Fearon wrote: “We would ... like to get an understanding of timing and availability for the space, and how we would need to coordinate around other parties who would be using [it].”
Automobile manufacturing is a radical departure from Apple's core business. Can they pull it off?
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday August 15 2015, @04:52PM
They can afford to experiment without producing an actual consumer product. They also might be interested in selling hardware/software directly to car manufacturers, like Nvidia [nvidia.com].
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Saturday August 15 2015, @06:31PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday August 15 2015, @09:16PM
I don't see why they need an actual self driving car in order to develop entertainment for one.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by tftp on Sunday August 16 2015, @02:39AM
I don't see why they need an actual self driving car in order to develop entertainment for one.
Perhaps they are looking ahead. Entertainment is good, but the barrier of entry is quite low. They know it better than anyone, having lost the smartphone market to a newcomer who had *nothing* when Apple already had the iOS and the product.
The future market of robotic vehicles is HUGE. It will be also highly concentrated in a few hands - primarily in hands of the first entrants. This is because there will be thousands of patents, thousands of specific code fragments, thousands of special algorithms - and lots of training data that is necessary for safe operation of a vehicle.
Yet another tall barrier of entry will be in financial responsibility and insurance. A newcomer, who has no statistics and no proof of safety of their vehicles, may be required to pay terrible premiums for the privilege of selling their autonomous vehicles. At the same time OEMs who were in it from the early days grew into the system gradually and painlessly; as matter of fact, they were in control of the laws and the rules at that time. Apple and Google are exactly the software behemoths who can develop two independent, but similar, software platforms for robot cars. This will create competition. Otherwise an autonomous vehicle will cost $10K in hardware + $50K in software, and there is nothing you can do about it, as no individual - and not even every large company - can develop their own driving software that will be permitted to operate on public roads. Apple wants to be among the early developers. It's just funny that Microsoft, as always, does not think about it. They are too busy destroying themselves.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Sunday August 16 2015, @09:09AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 15 2015, @05:05PM
to work on Big Game Changing Projects, and spin off Apple.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 15 2015, @05:39PM
i hope the backseats are roomy so i can reach the tip and part of the shaft and hey maybe they could include Fleshlights!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 15 2015, @05:58PM
How many malicious anti-features will these (or Google's or any company's) self-driving cars include? They'll obviously be filled with proprietary software, digital restrictions management, and every possible thing about them will be patented. I wonder how much spying they'll do for the companies and the government? Trying to remove any malicious 'features' yourself may end up being a crime under the DMCA or some other ridiculous law.
So how many people are prepared to foolishly surrender their freedom and privacy for the 'cool' factor?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday August 15 2015, @06:34PM
How many malicious anti-features will these (or Google's or any company's) self-driving cars include?
Initially not many at all.
They have a choice: Accept all liability and distract passengers, or foist all liability onto the driver, and prevent any distractions.
Initially, (given the current legal environment of law), I suspect they will lean more toward the latter. And as such they can't afford to do much beyond collecting statistics about trips. Nothing to distract the "responsible party".
The liability risk is simply too great, and if anything they built into the system contributed in any way to an accident it would cost them dearly.
Nothing that distracts the legally responsible operator (you) will be included in the vehicle.
Therefore, initial offerings will be very focused.
Only after years of use, (decades?), when they have influenced congress enough to escape all (or the bulk) of the liability issues, and simultaneously have weened drivers away from interfering with (er, *cough* taking control of) the driving, and have therefore freed up your attention from all vehicle monitoring tasks, will they be able to afford to compete for your eyeballs.
From then on, you are a captive audience. From then on they own every minute you spend in the vehicle.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by TrumpetPower! on Saturday August 15 2015, @06:55PM
You should stop thinking of these devices as "cars with optional autopilots" and instead as "fully roboticized taxis and limos." I guarantee you, Apple won't sell it with any user interface more direct than Siri. No steering wheel, no pedals, not even a joystick. Maybe a touchscreen, but only for the infotainment system, perhaps with an "advanced" mode that lets you tap your destination on a map. The chairs will likely swivel so those in front can turn and have a face-to-face conversation with those in the back. Probably even offer an option to black out or otherwise darken the windows so as to enhance the movie-watching experience.
Once people expect the cars to do the driving for them, they'll be no more capable of saving the car from a crash than any other passenger. Nobody's going to spend any time supervising the car's driving, any more than you already spend supervising the driver's driving. Anything the car could detect and warn somebody about to take control, the car could avoid in the first place without intervention. And the time to get somebody's attention, explain the problem, and elicit a reasonable response...yeah...not gonna happen.
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Sunday August 16 2015, @04:15AM
Maybe, but last weekend I was nearly hit by a red sedan with a SciFi type setup on it's roof. It ran a stop sign right in front of me. Fortunately I still have fast reactions, and even though there were skid marks, avoided collision. A magnetic sign on the door said "Apple Maps". I assumed it was it was out doing the same thing as google street view. A couple of days later I saw the same (or a similar) vehicle run a stop sign in a different part of town. This second car had no sign on it. There seemed to be an actual driver in each car.
After reading about the driverless car trials, I wonder if this was a test car. If so it needs a lot more work off of city streets. In any case I'm sure there will be some liability payments in Apple's future. And I'm kicking myself for reacting so fast. Probably could have gotten a newer SUV out of Apple.
The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 15 2015, @09:22PM
They have a choice: Accept all liability and distract passengers, or foist all liability onto the driver, and prevent any distractions.
Privacy invasions and the mere existence of proprietary software do not cause distractions. Neither does putting patents on everything, even the software. Or are you suggesting all software will be Free Software? If it's not, not only are your software freedoms infringed upon, but it is far more difficult to conclude with any high degree of probability that there are no backdoors and that it does not violate your privacy.
Furthermore, the government will be more than happy to ignore any of these problems (assuming it would even cause them to be liable as you say) if they could take a look at that data.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tibman on Saturday August 15 2015, @06:36PM
There is nothing your car can tell "them" that your phone hasn't been doing for the last six years. If you own a cellphone then you might as well get a self-driving car too : )
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday August 15 2015, @06:48PM
The car "owns" your body for the duration of the trip.
That is substantially different from you "owning" the phone that is turned off and in your pocket.
If you thing its just about advertising, you are sadly mistaken. By and large, people's disposable income
hasn't increased. You can advertise all you want, but people aren't going to buy much more.
There is a far bigger motive here. They want to own transportation. You won't own a car. The car will own you.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by tftp on Sunday August 16 2015, @03:22AM
You won't own a car. The car will own you.
Not sure how exactly can that be done. Even if you imagine that the law forbids adding a switch to disable speakers, and to cover the advertising LCD with a dark cloth, nothing can possibly prevent you from donning noise-cancelling headphones and turning away from the screen. But chances are good that even if the car comes with advertising, it can be disabled. If they are smart, there will be an option for that - perhaps even a paid option, like the one that AT&T charges for today to have you removed from their phone books. If they are stupid, the audio wires will be cut and a tiny, concealed, and remotely operated switch installed. The law will be ignored, just as today people casually ignore inconvenient laws (do not drive too fast, do not park here, do not turn here, do not loiter here, etc.)
Such "ownage" was already attempted near where I live. An owner of a gas station installed new pumps with a video feed and speakers. When installed, the speakers blared ads while you were pumping gas. A couple weeks later the volume was reduced to minimum. I'm sure that was not done willingly. Perhaps the owner of the gas station got tired of cleaning the speaker's grille from the expandable foam that Home Depot sells. Or perhaps the owner got too many complaints. Or perhaps the owner noticed that people started to avoid his station. You mess with people at your own risk - and that risk is significant.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 15 2015, @07:53PM
I don't have a cellphone, but your logic is nonsensical. The fact that your privacy is already violated in some ways doesn't mean you should increase the ways your privacy is violated, and increase the number of companies that violate your privacy. Yeah, let's make the problem even worse!
And the issue isn't only privacy, but software freedom.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Username on Saturday August 15 2015, @06:01PM
It will be unmodifiable, overpriced and highly acclaimed. Probably will require special tires and brake pads, only available from the apple store with special non standard bolts and screws to attach them. Most likely a huge success.
After the launch there will be a commercial where the apple car 2.0 is pictured speeding through snow while the autonomous google and tesla cars stop because their sensors freaked out. Then a hologram of Jobs will come on screen and tell us all about the future of travel, where those annoying autonomous car are taken out of the picture and frees us of their burden.
The new 2.0 cars will be an even bigger success than the original. Hipsters around the world would think manually driving your car is the biggest innovation in car history. One billion cars sold.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday August 15 2015, @06:16PM
And each passenger will have to apply for and apple account before the car will allow them to enter. This to protect the Apple Car experience and the curated environment. NDAs and hold harmless agreements will be required.
Yeah, we get it, its easy to make jokes about this with any Apple product. You forgot the bit about it being The Best Thing Ever.
But Apple has the most free cash right now compared to other large companies.
Apple looks at this as just another piece of hardware they can manufacture in China, and add a layer of closed source software.
Somehow I doubt that you can do this with automobiles like you can with computers: Too many systems, too much liability.
Given the amount of research Apple has done on self driving cars (next to zero) I suspect much of this tech has been "borrowed" from others.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Saturday August 15 2015, @06:24PM
You're both thinking too small.
It will only drive you to one of the now massive chain of Apple iStores (TM) and further will refuse to drive you back home until "the net" recognizes you've purchased an adequate supply of new shiny for this week.
Marketers have been ejaculating about "driving traffic to our storefront" since Web 1.0; you think they didn't really mean it, given the opportunity?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 15 2015, @06:38PM
Given the amount of research Apple has done on self driving cars (next to zero) I suspect much of this tech has been "borrowed" from others.
Judging from the engineers they have poached from actual car manufacturers it also seems likely they are "borrowing" a lot of chassis and suspension technology. As someone else noted, there are many diverse systems to be integrated into a car and getting just one of them wrong could ruin the "riding" experience.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday August 15 2015, @08:52PM
They couldn't be bothered to make their own iPhones, why would they make their own cars?
They will just contract that out to some Chinese/korean car manufacturer, and bolt on their electronics and sensor packages.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Saturday August 15 2015, @06:39PM
You already have to apply for an [insert insurance company name] account before you can drive : )
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday August 15 2015, @07:24PM
But they don't make cars.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Funny) by chewbacon on Sunday August 16 2015, @12:54AM
The charging cable will cost $15000 and will only be 3 feet long.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RedBear on Saturday August 15 2015, @08:20PM
Curious that it is never mentioned in the summary (although the word appears in the article) that it is supposed to be a fully battery-electric vehicle like the Nissan LEAF or Tesla Model S/X. To my mind this is the most important aspect of the vehicle, that yet another non-car company believes they can put out a BEV and compete with all the traditional car companies (and Tesla). This is another sign to me that the electric car is finally here to stay and can't be killed off anymore. I believe that if they manage to come out with something with decent range and styling it will be quite popular and will prove yet another kick in the gut to the traditional automakers. Imagine if they actually did the smart thing and built the charging costs into the price of the car so they could accept Tesla's offer to share in their Supercharger network. Any other BEV that has the ability to use Tesla's Supercharger network will immediately be extremely popular. The other main "standard" high-speed charging options (CHAdeMO and CCS) still have significantly lower market penetration and much lower charging speeds. By the time Apple's car comes out there will be Superchargers all over North America and Europe and significant penetration in the Asian countries.
The fact that the car may have some autonomous driving features is just a side effect of the fact that this is becoming one of the new defining features to improve driving safety and draw people to buy new cars. Articles like this are really a distraction from the important bit about the fact that a company that makes computers and cellphones thinks it's time to make a car. And they have plenty of cash on hand to outdo Tesla at its own game and put out something pretty good right out of the starting gate. Apple's participation in the EV market will create even more interest in EVs from mainstream car buyers and will cause other car companies to speed up their own tepid plans for EVs for fear that they will end up losing market share to Apple, of all things. And if Apple's vehicle is successful, who wants to bet that some other big tech companies like Samsung won't immediately try to do the same thing? I certainly wouldn't bet against that possibility. Even if you hate Apple as a company and hate all their products, you have to admit that they have several times acted as a fulcrum that moves entire markets and industries in a new direction.
If Apple really does this, the whole auto manufacturer landscape could look significantly different 10-15 years from now.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday August 15 2015, @08:30PM
Range doesn't matter unless you own the vehicle.
If, as some speculate, Apple does not plan to sell to individuals, but rather provide taxi-like rentals of driverless vehicles in big cities, the fact that it has to go charge itself after taking you to the office each morning really won't bother you. You won't have to bother with it.
By the way, the vast majority of charging stations in this country have nothing to do with Tesla.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by RedBear on Saturday August 15 2015, @09:10PM
That's a hell of a speculation that I put no stock in. There are still too many tests to be done and regulations to be written before fully autonomous vehicles are going to be allowed to drive around by themselves on public roads. It will be years before you'll be able to order up a self-driving taxi. No, people are going to want to own these things.
I am perfectly well aware that most of the public charging infrastructure has nothing to do with Tesla. It's also mostly level 2 charging with the standard J1772 plug. Great for nightly home charging or charging during work. But I was referring to the available high speed charging options. So far Tesla's Supercharger network is the only one that is capable of charging a high-range vehicle fast enough to impress even mainstream drivers who still pretty much view BEVs as a joke. The fact that you normally don't need any type of quick charging option just doesn't register with traditional drivers. So the existence of the Supercharger network is a huge asset to Tesla. It makes people psychologically comfortable with buying a Tesla BEV rather than some range-extended hybrid.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday August 16 2015, @12:36AM
There are still too many tests to be done and regulations to be written before fully autonomous vehicles are going to be allowed to drive around by themselves on public roads.
Are yee daft mon?
4 states currently license the use of self driving cars on the public roads in normal traffic.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by RedBear on Sunday August 16 2015, @11:20AM
'Tis yee who art daft, me boyo.
Those licenses are only for testing purposes and there must be a qualified human driver at the wheel ready to take over at all times. That does not fit the definition of a "fully autonomous vehicle" capable of driving itself to meet you and then driving itself back to some charging station with no human occupant.
No public officials are going to allow cars to drive themselves on public roads without a supervising human test driver sitting at the wheel for quite some time, until the technology has matured and been proven many times over to actually be more reliable than a human driver under all testable circumstances. My guess is a minimum of 7-12 years for this progression of testing and validation. That's just the way it is. The technology is still in its early stages. It's progressing quickly but still needs extensive testing. If nothing else we still need to work out insurance rates and legal/liability issues around what happens when there is finally a horrible accident involving one or more fully autonomous vehicles. Bad weather, bad luck and human drivers guarantee a major accident will eventually happen. With no driver, who do you blame? Who do you sue? Who goes to jail, if anyone? Is the manufacturer liable, or just the vehicle owner? Why, or why not? These and many other questions need answers.
Depending on the circumstances around the first few major accidents (a few kids getting run over, for instance) there could easily be an irrational fear-based public backlash against self-driving cars that would bring the whole idea to a screeching halt for another 20 years. Seeing fully autonomous vehicles on the road in the near future is very far from any kind of a sure thing. Therefore for Apple to be planning on selling their electric car as nothing but a self-driving taxi makes very little sense to me.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 2) by Username on Sunday August 16 2015, @07:31AM
Samsung has been making electric vehicles since the 70s. It’s just they’re all industrial vehicles like forklifts, cranes, mining dollies, etc. They’ve had the technology to make an electric car for a long time, but I’m guessing they haven’t entered the market since it’s not profitable. Once it is, I bet they will start making cars. Then apple will probably sue them, and get the courts to block the sales of the samsung cars even though samsung had the technology for years.
(Score: 1) by Murdoc on Saturday August 15 2015, @11:36PM
At first I couldn't imagine what would get Apple to want to venture that far out of their product zone, but then something occurred to me: Siri was originally an AI (not strong) project by DARPA, right? It was later developed into a smartphone app by whatever company Apple then bought. What if Apple found a way to apply the AI to another purpose, something that was touched on by DARPA but not followed up on for some reason? What if that something was vehicle piloting? That could explain this. Just an idea. If so, what other application spin-offs might they have bought? How many other areas of our lives is Apple going to try to invade?
(Score: 3, Funny) by darkfeline on Sunday August 16 2015, @01:51AM
iCars will only run on iRoads. You have to buy a license to drive on each segment of iRoad for a measly $0.99 USD from the Apple App Store. iCars will actively tailgate and drive dangerously around non-iCars, like those heretic Google Cars. You can choose from the 15 MPH, 30 MPH, 45 MPH, and 60 MPH models (upgrade fees apply).
A premium, diamond-and-gold version will be available on release for $50,000,000 USD.
The iCars' tendency to plow into bystanders wearing Android shirts is a feature, not a bug.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 16 2015, @01:54AM
To be arrogant enough to be an Apple car, they will have to base it on a Volvo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 16 2015, @02:24PM
Tesla is hemorrhaging cash, and Musk apparently has pitched Apple in the past, so it would make some sense. The price tag: high, but Apple could easily afford it (to buy the company that is). But, making money from selling Tesla cars would be more challenging.