Apple Car Involved In Crash, Rear-Ended By Human Driver And Found Not At Fault
Apple products have been the talk of the town over the past few months, in anticipation of Apple’s next round of product releases. The Inquisitr reports that speculation has intensified over the past week around a few new products in particular, namely the iPhone XS, the iPhone XS Plus, and the Apple Watch Series 4. After Apple released invitations to its upcoming launch event on September 12, news quickly broke about leaked photos of two of the three new iPhones, and of the new and improved Apple Watch.
Another of Apple’s products has made headlines lately as well, but for a completely different reason. News broke this weekend that one of Apple’s self-driving cars was involved in a fender-bender in late August. According to High Snob Society, a report was filed with the California DMV indicating that one of Apple’s vehicles was rear ended by a Nissan Leaf during a traffic merge. This is the first crash for Apple’s Project Titan autonomous car program.
“An Apple test vehicle in autonomous mode was rear-ended while preparing to merge onto Lawrence Expressway South from Kifer Road. The Apple test vehicle was travelling less than 1mph waiting for a safe gap to complete the merge when a 2016 Nissan Leaf contacted the Apple test vehicle at approximately 15mph. Both vehicles sustained damage and no injuries were reported by either party.”
Apple’s self-driving car was determined to not be at fault in the incident.
Apple Discloses Minor Crash Involving Self-Driving Test Vehicle https://t.co/sDksBMybFD https://t.co/n1HzPkdgvi
— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) August 31, 2018
Digital Trends reports that this is not the first time a self-driving car has collided with a human driver. Software engineer Phil Koopman suggested that part of the reason why self-driving cars keep getting hit by humans is that the autonomous cars are ineffective at mimicking human drivers.
Koopman said in a statement, “I think that people are being very optimistic about how long we’ll have to get to something to where the human does not have to pay attention. It’s new technology. It’s immature technology. We’re still figuring out how to make it work. We’re in a hype cycle.”
Mashable reports that Apple began working on its car program in 2014, but the current iteration of its autonomous vehicles just began road tests in 2017. Apple currently has dozens of its self-driving cars on the roads.
The Inquisitr previously reported that Apple hit obstacles in its attempt to partner with high-end car manufacturers for Project Titan, including BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Recently, the company was successful in forging a relationship with Volkswagen, resulting in a self-driving Volkswagen’s T6 California that has been used as an Apple employee shuttle since earlier this summer.
