Apple also sets to develop smart vehicles

Apple also sets to develop smart vehicles. December. 05, 2016 07:10. by Ji-Hyun Kim jhk85@donga.com.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday local time that Apple recently submitted a six-page letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), admitting that the company invested in the self-driving car development project.

The letter from Apple's Director of Product Integrity Steve Kenner said that the tech giant is investing heavily in the study of machine learning (artificial intelligence that predicts situations from data analysis) and automation and is excited about the potential of automated systems in many areas, including transportation.

The U.S. government released safety guidelines for self-driving cars in September and has gathered opinions from Google, Ford, and other self-driving car developing companies. Apple also wrote the letter to U.S. regulators in an effort to this end.

"Executed properly under NHTSA's guidance, automated vehicles have the potential to greatly enhance the human experience — to prevent millions of car crashes and thousands of fatalities each year and to give mobility to those without," Kenner said. He also stressed that regulators should promptly provide new safety measures and regulations are needed for manufacturers to share the information with regard to traffic and accidents with each other to reduce safety related accidents. So far, car manufacturers have opposed to share their traffic data as proposed by the government.