Apple's self-driving cars turned out to be 10 thousand times worse than competitors

Apple's self-driving cars turned out to be many times worse than competitors in a key parameter - mileage per human intervention. about this Bloomberg writes with reference to the annual report sent by the company to the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

More. Drivers of an autonomous Apple car have to intervene every 1.77 kilometers. This is a very low figure. For comparison:

• Alphabet's Waymo drones are capable of traveling over 17,730 kilometers without human intervention.
• General Motors Cruise vehicles drive an average of 8,377 kilometers in unmanned mode.
• In total, 48 companies submitted relevant data to the California department, including Zoox, Nuro, Nissan, Baidu, Aurora, Nvidia and Mercedes. Among those named, only startups Zoox and Nuro have over 1,000 kilometers without intervention.
• Autonomous vehicles are also being developed by Yandex, but the mileage without human intervention is not disclosed. The press service explains that they consider this an irrelevant metric.

Context. Apple has been developing autonomous cars since at least 2015.

• Apple drones hit the road in the spring of 2017.
• In August 2018, Apple's electric vehicle development team was led by former Tesla VP of Engineering Doug Field. One of his first decisions was a restructuring, during which 200 employees were fired.
• Judging by the report, large-scale tests began in May-June 2018. Mileage increased even more in autumn.
• Data for California is not complete. Other states, such as Arizona and Florida, do not require disclosure during testing, which attracts developers.
• The mileage indicator without human intervention is important, but not the only one. For example, unlike Uber, Apple's drone didn't hit anyone. Uber froze its developments after one of the cars knocked down a pedestrian to death.
• According to Alexander Tursky, founder of Navigation Maps, which launched in-car navigation in Russia in 2006, while Apple's numbers are low, it's not clear what level of autonomous driving Apple's car is claiming. The difference in levels may make the comparison incorrect. Tursky emphasizes that for the reliability of the system, running-in over millions of kilometers is required.

Alexander Amzin