Apple reveals autonomous car plans

Apple has made its first ever public acknowledgment that it is taking on tech rival Google by investing in building a self-driving car.

The news was contained in a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the US transport regulator, which said the company was “excited about the potential of automated systems in many areas, including transportation”.

The letter was the result of Apple’s “heavy investment in machine learning and autonomous systems”, with the company stating it wanted to help define best practices in the industry.

The author, Apple’s director of product integrity Steve Kenner (pictured above), asked the regulator not to introduce too many rules on the testing of self-driving cars, saying that “established manufacturers and new entrants should be treated equally.”

However, Kenner did say that there was a need to address the “privacy challenges” arising from the collection, use, and sharing of automated vehicle data”, and collaboration on data about accidents and other statistics.