SAN FRANCISCO - Apple Inc has held talks with at least four companies as possible suppliers for next-generation lidar sensors in self-driving cars, evaluating the companies’ technology while also still working on its own lidar unit, three people familiar with the discussions said.
Apple is seeking lidar units that would be smaller, cheaper and more easily mass produced than current technology, the three people said. The iPhone maker is setting a high bar with demands for a “revolutionary design,” one of the people familiar with the talks said. The people declined to name the companies Apple has approached.
That makes them too bulky and prone to failure for use in mass-produced vehicles. The shortcomings have spurred $1 billion in investment at dozens of startups and mature companies alike to make lidar smaller, cheaper and more robust. But what is clear from Apple’s interest in cheaper lidar systems is that it wants to control the “perception stack” of sensors, computers and software to drive an autonomous vehicle, regardless of who makes the vehicle, another person familiar with the talks said. The three people familiar with the talks declined to be identified because the discussions are not public.
Apple gets “a lot of optionality by working on the perception stack,” said the second person familiar with the talks. “Bringing a passenger car to the market is really, really hard, and there’s no reason right now they need to jump into it.”The designs Apple is seeking could potentially be made with conventional semiconductor manufacturing techniques, all four people familiar with the talks said.
“They’re not happy with most of what they see,” the first person familiar with the matter said. “They’re looking for a revolutionary design.”
Just as the new Apple icar 3 is being released, you realise that the latest update to your Apple iCar 2 has made it only accelerate to 50% of its previous maximum speed....
If I'm going to be hit by a self-driving car, I'd prefer an Apple brand vehicle. They can afford the settlement.
Nobody wants a $1,000,000 self-driving car when others will be selling it for much, much less. Apple has an inflated sense of the worth of their products!
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Source: Reuters - 🏆 2. / 97 Read more »