Coverage: The iCar is coming soon

Apple has signaled its interest in self-driving technology, sending a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asking it not to regulate such vehicles.

David Shepardson of Reuters has the news:

A five-page letter from Steve Kenner, Apple’s director of product integrity, to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is the company’s most comprehensive statement yet about its interest in self-driving vehicle technology. The Nov. 22 letter followed more than a year of industry speculation about the computer and iPhone maker’s plans for expanding into transportation.

“The company is investing heavily in the study of machine learning and automation, and is excited about the potential of automated systems in many areas, including transportation,” Kenner wrote.

“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.”

Apple urged regulators not to impose too many restrictions on testing of self-driving cars, saying “established manufacturers and new entrants should be treated equally.”

Since software would decide what actions to take in potentially dangerous situations, Apple said certain areas need special attention. These include the implications of algorithmic decisions for the safety, mobility and legality of automated vehicles and their occupants, ensuring privacy and security in design, and the impact of the cars on employment and public spaces.

Tim Bradshaw of the Financial Times notes that Apple wants to share technology to speed up development:

As well as levelling the playing field for Silicon Valley newcomers who may be competing with traditional carmakers in Detroit, regulations should allow for faster testing of new iterations of technology, it says. Waiting for regulatory clearance each time could add months to the development process.

In one of the five-page letter’s more controversial passages, Apple says that manufacturers should pool their data as they develop automated systems, to help everyone identify the multitude of unusual situations or “edge cases” that cars might encounter on the roads.

“Companies should share de-identified scenario and dynamics data from crashes and near-misses,” Apple writes. “By sharing data, the industry will build a more comprehensive data set than any one company could create alone.”

However, it added: “Data sharing should not come at the cost of privacy.”

Edward Moyer of CNET writes that there’s plenty of competition in the self-driving car market:

Self-driving vehicles have revved up the tech industry’s imagination. Other companies exploring the field include Google, which has been testing driverless vehicles for several years now; Tesla Motors, in the headlines last June and July over a fatality involving the Autopilot system in some of its cars; and Uber, which showed off its first autonomous car, a Ford Fusion hybrid, this past May in Pittsburgh.

Apple’s five-page letter to the NHTSA is a response to an agency request for public comment on the Federal Automated Vehicles Policy, a document the agency calls a “starting point that provides needed initial guidance to industry, government, and consumers.” The deadline for comment was November 22, the date of Apple’s letter, but it’s not clear when the letter was posted online.

In the letter, Steve Kenner, director of product integrity at Apple, talks up the potential of self-driving cars, acknowledges the need for strong safeguards and says safety can be achieved without putting the brakes on innovation.

“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 writes.