{"id":3335,"date":"2015-02-15T23:44:49","date_gmt":"2015-02-15T23:44:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=3335"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:53:38","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:53:38","slug":"autonomous-vehicles-and-the-apple-icar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/autonomous-vehicles-and-the-apple-icar\/","title":{"rendered":"Autonomous Vehicles and the Apple iCar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good news for Apple fetishists \u2013 now even your car can be anointed with Steve Jobs\u2019 blessing!
\nThis past week, reports began circulating that the monolithic technology developer, responsible for such greats as iTunes and the iPhone, had entered the arena of automotive design<\/a>. \u201cPeople familiar with the matter<\/a>\u201d have indicated that Apple now has several hundred employees working around the clock on a project code-named \u201cTitan.\u201d If the rumors are true, then Apple\u2019s car will not only be electric, but also self-driving<\/a>.
\nIn researching project Titan, Apple has been meeting with luxury car manufacturers from around the world, including Magna International, the maker of the Magna Steyr. Apple also notably hired Marc Newson last year, a renowned industrial designer who has designed concept cars for Ford in the past.
\nBut when will the iCar arrive? Right now, details are murky at best. When directly asked, Apple declined to issue an official statement. What is known, though, is that it would take years for any prototype to be developed, tested, and then safety certified. Because Apple started this task less than a year ago, it will probably be some time before we see any results.
\nAlthough Apple is currently enjoying a period of massive financial growth, reporting a 30% rise<\/a> in revenue last quarter, the company still has at least few other electric-car makers to compete against if it wishes for project Titan to succeed.
\nTesla, the premier luxury electric car company, is Apple\u2019s most obvious challenge. For some time there was speculation that the software manufacturer would acquire Tesla<\/a>, however it appears that Apple has instead elected to build their own car, rather than to buy someone else\u2019s. Thus, it should come as no surprise that Apple has apparently been courting Tesla employees<\/a> on an individual basis.
\nGoogle has also been working on an electric, self-driving car for some time. The Internet company debuted their autonomous driving technology back in 2010<\/a>, sparking much interest and debate, and have since only intensified their investment in the field. They have made a great deal of progress in recent years, growing beyond the limitation of straightforward driving.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe vehicles are getting a much deeper semantic understanding<\/a>,\u201d says a Google rep.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The company has also been working on a ride-hailing application to pair with this technology, and believes that app-summoned, self-driving cabs could be ready within the next 5 years<\/a>.
\nUber, the ride-hailing company that Google has invested in, has similarly begun to study autonomous driving. Earlier this year, Uber announced that it would be opening its own research labs on the Carnegie Mellon University campus, called the Uber Advanced Technologies Center<\/a>. Uber’s CEO, Travis Kalanick, has expressed a desire to remove the human element from transportation, noting that “when there’s no dude driving the car, the cost of taking an Uber anywhere becomes cheaper than owning a vehicle \u2026 and car ownership goes away<\/a>.”
\nCar manufacturers have been throwing their hats into the ring of automated driving, as well: BMW is showing off a smartwatch-controlled self-parking feature, and Audi has conducted a long-distance trial of automated highway driving. However, most of the auto industry\u2019s research has gone into driver-assisted<\/a>, rather than self-driving, technology. This difference of purpose will be likely to strictly limit the amount of collaboration<\/a> between Apple and the auto industry, as carmakers are naturally less interested in reducing the number of human drivers.
\nDespite the stiff competition, Apple has expressed a readiness for the challenge. Sources close to the project have hinted that the tech company is much more interested in owning the rights to the self-driving operating system than in creating a physical car, stating, \u201dIt\u2019s a software game<\/a>.\u201d As user-friendly software is one of Apple\u2019s specialties, their confidence is hardly unfounded.
\nImplementation aside, this new technology raises some serious questions about its potential effects on society. Specifically, driverless cars threaten the taxi industry<\/a>, and could put thousands of drivers out of work. Some have even suggested that the profession of cab driving could become extinct in a world with autonomous cars.
\nOn the other hand, driverless cars could reduce the need for work commutes, second family cars, and parking lots. Presently, parking lots take up to as much as a third of the land area<\/a> in any given city, so the proliferation of self-driving cars could significantly increase our available space. Furthermore, autonomous cars would reduce the emission of toxic gases into our environment, possibly saving our planet in addition to our time and money.
\nWith so many companies investing in self-driving car research, their existence seems inevitable. One can only hope that the result will be a safer, cleaner world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good news for Apple fetishists \u2013 now even your car can be anointed with Steve Jobs\u2019 blessing! This past week, reports began circulating that the monolithic technology developer, responsible for such greats as iTunes and the iPhone, had entered the arena of automotive design. \u201cPeople familiar with the matter\u201d have indicated that Apple now has …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3336,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3335"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3335"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7371,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3335\/revisions\/7371"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}