Apple gets more self-driving test cars (AAPL)

Apple has expanded the number of Lexus SUVs equipped with its self-driving technologies that it's registered to test on public roads in California from 3 to 27, according toBloomberg.

The tech giant's self-driving technology project, dubbed "Project Titan," wasapprovedto test cars equipped with its technologies on public roads in the state last April, and one of its cars wasspottedin Silicon Valley in October. Interestingly, the Lexus SUVs are the same model used by Google's self-driving car project in its early days, and the Apple vehicle spotted in California was equipped with image-sensing LiDAR technologies purchased from Velodyne, a popular designer that has previously supplied products to Ford and Waymo. Apple's vehicles are alsooutfittedwith radar sensors and a computing stack on the outside that are designed to help support the LiDAR sensors in visualizing the world around the vehicle.

The move is a big step forward for Apple's self-driving technologies, which appear to be slightly different from its competitors'. After initially exploring building an autonomous, electric car, Applerefocusedthe effort in early 2017 around designing software and artificial intelligence (AI) that help cars drive themselves.

However, recent patents show the company is taking a slightly different approach from most other self-driving technology suppliers. For example, Apple was awarded apatentlast month that would allow its system rely on machine learning and AI-based software that leverages a car's sensors to constantly create a new virtual image of everything around the car, without needing to rely on maps or other external data.Uberand others, on the other hand, have only tested their autonomous cars in pre-mapped areas where cars’ built-in computers can take data from LiDAR sensors and compare it to known reference points. Operating nine times as many test cars will allow the tech titan to expose these types of novel ideas to more environments and geographies.

Nonetheless, Apple is still significantly behind its competitors in its efforts to bring a self-driving system to market.It's not clear how many miles the tech titan's cars have driven on California roads, although it's almost certainly dwarfed by the over 4 million miles that Waymo's cars haveloggedin eight different states. Moreover, the company will also need at least one partnership with an automaker to monetize this system by placing it inside a vehicle, though it has none yet in place.

Nearly every automaker already has at least one of these partnerships, and would likely be dissuaded from working with Apple until it can demonstrate significant technological progress on its system. However, if Apple is able to develop a more versatile autonomous system with unique features, such as non-mapping based autonomy, it could make up ground against Waymo, Intel, Nvidia and other suppliers. Such features will be difficult to develop, though, as eschewing mapping data would require the cars' sensors and other navigational instruments to be more capable and accurate than its competitors'.