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Nissan Leaf Crashes Into Apple Autonomous Car

As do other tech giants, Apple too is working on a technology that would permit its entry on the autonomous vehicles market. Apple’s tech, deployed in some 66 vehicles in California alone, was so far untainted by unwanted incidents.
Lexus RX 1 photo
Photo: Lexus
That changed last week after a Nissan Leaf driven by a human rear-ended a Lexus RX450h driven by Apple’s self-driving algorithm.

According to BBC, citing a report filed with the California Department of Motor Vehicles, the incident occurred on the Lawrence Expressway South, in Santa Clara, California.

As per the report, Apple’s Lexus was trying to merge onto the expressway when the driver of the Leaf decided to give the company’s secretive project a bit of media exposure. The Lexus was driving at 1 mph when it was hit by the Leaf at 15 mph, so obviously, no one was injured in the incident.

Following initial investigations, the cause of the crash was attributed to human error, but the DMV does not officially blame anyone for the crash.

As said, this is the first time an Apple autonomous car project is involved in a road incident. The company has been testing hardware and software for self-driving vehicles for some time now and, according to info leaked from a criminal complaint against a former employee charged with stealing trade secrets, some 5,000 people are involved.

Apple never openly talked about the project, rumored to be called Titan. At the end of the project, some see Apple launching its own electric autonomous car, while others hope for autonomous tech packs which will be sold to established manufacturers.

So far, Apple is said to have gotten involved at one point or another in the development of the project with BMW, Nissan, BYD, McLaren and most recently Volkswagen.

With VW, Apple is said to be working on creating a fleet of autonomous T6 vans to be used as shuttles for the American company’s employees.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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