Apple seeks equal treatment for new auto industry entrants on US highways

In a letter Apple wrote to the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration last week, it said,  "new entrants" to the auto industry should get the same rights as the established companies in the industry, reports Venture Beat.  

The letter was signed by Apple VP of Product Integrity Steve Kenner, who was earlier Ford's Global Director of Automotive Safety. It was not known when Kenner joined Apple, as his LinkedIn still listed Ford as his employer.

Apple pointed out in the letter that established car manufacturers do not have to pursue exemptions to the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards when attempting to test cars on public roads due to the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act. New entrants in the auto industry, like Google and others, are not granted the same right under the FAST Act. 

The Cupertino company argued that the best way to maximise safety benefits for autonomous vehicles, ensure fair competition and encourage innovation was for the NHTSA to amend policy to state that seeking exemptions was not necessary for internal development vehicles on public roads. 

The other half of the letter, dated 22 November, addressed the Federal Automated Vehicles policy and a proposed data sharing programme. "Apple agrees that companies should share de-identified scenario and dynamics data from crashes and near-misses," the letter says. "Data should be sufficient to reconstruct the event, including time-series of vehicle kinematics and characteristics of the roadway and objects." 

In October, it was reported that Apple was abandoning its car plans "for now." 

After several layoffs and reassignments, the remaining members of the Apple Car team were focusing on autonomous systems and dozens of employees were also working on a car operating system in Canada.