What you need to know
- Apple has increased the number of drivers for its self-driving fleet by more than 20%.
- It has also added one more vehicle to its fleet.
Apple has expanded the number of drivers for its self-driving car fleet by over twenty percent.
As reported by MacReports, according to the California DMV, Apple has added one more to its fleet of vehicles with an autonomous permit. Even more interesting is the number of drivers for its fleet, which Apple has grown to ninety-two, an over twenty percent increase from a few months ago.
Now, according to the California DMV, a little more than two months later, we see that Apple has added another car to its fleet for a total of 69 vehicles with an autonomous vehicle permit registered with the California DMV. They have also added back a significant number of drivers since May. They now, as of July 30th, have 92 driver permits – up from 76 in May. The number of drivers is still down significantly from October 2020 when we reported that Apple had 154 driver permits.
The report also notes that Apple has still not applied for a driverless permit for its autonomous vehicles.
According to the California DMV, Apple, unlike most of the other manufacturers with large autonomous fleets, has not yet applied for a driverless permit for its autonomous vehicles. There are, however, eight manufacturers who have driverless permits for one or more vehicles in their fleet. Notable changes since our May report include Nuro increasing its number from 7 to 18.
Today's news is an interesting change, as Apple had gone in the opposite direction back in May. During that month, the company had cut the number of drivers from its fleet of self-driving cars in half from 154 to 76 drivers. It's currently unclear exactly why the number of drivers keeps fluctuating so much.
Apple has long been rumored to be working on an Apple Car, its own electric car that will rival competitors like Tesla. According to the latest rumors, the company could unveil the vehicle in the back half of the decade.
