Apple Drastically Cuts Number of Drivers in AV Program

For the first time in two years, Apple has reduced the size of its autonomous vehicle (AV) driving team. Just last month, in March, Apple had 201 drivers licensed by the California DMV to pilot its self-driving test cars. We recently received numbers from the California DMV that say, as of April 28th, the number of drivers now sits at 145.

Apple’s AV driving team

Apple had been steadily growing its driving team since July 2021. Just prior to that, Apple had slashed its team by more than half after holding its numbers steady early in the pandemic.

Apple’s AV fleet size

Compared to the variations in the size of its driving team, Apple has held the size of its AV fleet (comprised of Lexus SUVs) relatively steady. Since March, Apple has reduced its fleet size by one vehicle, moving from 67 to 66 cars.

The variations in fleet size over the last three years have been low, ranging between 66 and 69 vehicles. In fact, these were numbers seen pretty early in Apple’s program, back in August of 2019.

Driverless deployment?

One of the big questions regarding Apple’s AV testing program in California is whether it has applied to test its vehicles without a driver. So far, no. The only companies who have licenses to test a driverless vehicle in the state of California are Nuro, Cruise and Waymo – and this hasn’t changed since September 2021.

Current fleet volumes from California DMV

Manufacturer Name	Drivers	Vehicles
MERC BENZ	195	77
WAYMO	927	362
TESLA	59	14
CRUISE	332	862
ZOOX	649	182
NVIDIA	265	13
APPLE	145	66
NISSAN	48	6
NURO	118	115
MOTIONAL	34	45
WOVEN PLANET	77	38
GHOST	23	10

Previous coverage of Apple’s autonomous vehicle testing program

• January 2023: Apple Adds More Drivers to Autonomous Vehicle Team; Decreases Fleet Size
• November 2022: Apple Has Added 51 More Drivers in 2022 While Fleet Size Remains Steady
• September 2022: Apple Adds More Drivers to its Autonomous Vehicle Program; Waymo, Cruise Make Huge Additions to Their Driverless Fleets
• June 2022: New Apple Autonomous Vehicle Data: 7 More Drivers for Apple’s Fleet
• March 2022: Apple Adds More Drivers to Its Autonomous Vehicle Program
• January 2022: Apple Adds 11 Drivers to Autonomous Fleet; Other Manufacturers See Changes

Early coverage of Apple’s autonomous vehicle program

• April 2019: Number of Apple’s Autonomous Cars Decreases For The First Time
• June 2018: More Apple Car Details: Apple’s Secret Team and Objective.de