Apple has been rumoured to have put a halt to its secret autonomous vehicle initiative. But it seems it hasn’t abandoned the idea after all. A new regulatory filing uncovered by VentureBeat shows Apple’s intent for working in said industry. In a letter to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Apple urges the government to not restrict testing of self-driving vehicles so that there will be safe deployment of “highly automated vehicles.” Apple says in the letter that they use machine learning in different aspects, including transportation industry.
The tech giant also hopes that both existing manufacturers and “new entrants” be treated equally to make the most of the safety benefits of the technology. This can be interpreted as Apple hoping it gets the same treatment as other more established manufacturers working in the autonomous vehicle space. According to a statement released to Financial Times, Apple says the letter is the company’s way to make sure that the NHTSA defines the best practices for the “machine learning and autonomous systems.” Apple won’t outright discuss its efforts in the field yet but this hints at the possibility that Apple is still working on at the very least a self-driving platform.
Source: 9to5Mac