Apple adds 24 Lexus SUVs to growing self-driving vehicle fleet

Apple has registered an additional two dozen vehicles with California’s Department of Motor Vehicles, indicating that the company’s driverless car ambitions are expanding significantly.

The tech giant first registered three Lexus Rx450h SUVs with a permit to test autonomous vehicles back in April 0f 2017. Now, according to the California DMV’s report, which was first reported by Bloomberg, Apple has acquired 24 Lexus SUVs it plans to use for its autonomous driving project. The tech giant specifically purchased two in July, seven in October, two in November, six in December and Seven in January, as reported by Bloomberg.

Apple has remained quiet about the tech giant’s self-driving vehicle ambitions and little is known about the initiative beyond its impressive sounding codename, Project Titan. Reports emerged last year that Apple scuttled the concept of building a car from scratch and instead shifted to autonomous software for existing vehicle manufacturers.

Going to need more than 140 characters to go over ?’s Project Titan. I call it “The Thing” pic.twitter.com/sLDJd7iYSa

— MacCallister Higgins (@macjshiggins) October 17, 2017

Tim Cook has also confirmed in past interviews that Apple is working on “autonomous vehicle systems,” rather than a complete ‘Apple Car’ of some sort.

It’s unclear when Apple will actually speak publicly about its autonomous car project, but given how far off driverless vehicles are at this point, it will likely be years until we know what’s really going on in the tech giant’s secret labs.

I for one look forward to living in iRobot.

Image credit: Twitter (MacCallister Higgins)

Source: Bloomberg