Apple’s Self-Driving Car May Not Be As Autonomous As We Expected – SlashGear

At SlashGear, we’ve seen this pattern before. Autonomous car manufacturers have a habit of making major claims, then scaling back as difficulties ensue.

It all comes back to levels. As J.D. Power reports, there are five levels of autonomy in car design, from Level 1, where no driver assists exist, to Level 5, where a vehicle can operate itself in any setting, with no human input required. In terms of the development cycle of autonomous cars, companies in the theory phase confidently predicted quick manufacture and widespread adoption of Level 5 cars.

In practice, companies seem to have landed between Levels 2 and 3. In the former,  a car requires human intervention but offers driver assists for both braking and steering. With the latter, a car can largely operate itself but may require limited human intervention in certain situations.

Level 2 is widely available now. Comprehensive driver-assist systems like Tesla’s FSD, GM Super Cruise, Volvo’s Pilot Assist, and others all qualify. As for Level 3, that’s what Apple intends to achieve by 2026. Honda has achieved this, but only on a small scale. Other companies have a time frame similar to Apple’s. The widespread adoption of autonomous cars is unquestionably coming, but deployment has proven more complex and demanding than manufacturers, Apple included, had anticipated.