Valued at US$200 million, the startup Drive.ai was about to close its doors for good, but Apple ended up preventing that from happening. The "apple" bought the company's assets and equipment.
Founded in 2015, Drive.ai was created by machine learning researchers at Stanford University, an autonomous bus transportation service in Texas. Apple ended up taking an interest in the work carried out by academics and entered into negotiations with the company three weeks ago.
Last year, no one would have thought that Drive.ai would one day be in danger of closing if it had the image that it was a promising company that works with autonomous cars. It made a name for itself by developing a system of recognition and actions to avoid objects on the road and even made headlines with its tests of fixed route using autonomous vehicles, with no person to monitor or control inside, traveling on public roads.
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The vehicles used by the company for automation were Nissan V200s in orange color with LED screens on the hood, above the front and rear wheels. On the screens, messages were displayed, for example, "waiting", "going", "entering" or "exiting".
However, that wasn't enough for Drive. ai survive since it is a technology that is still under consolidation and with low expectations of completion and application. Many experts say that self-driving cars will take years or even decades to be fully deployed.
But luckily, at least for Drive.ai, Apple acquired the rights to the company, bought the vehicles, and hired everyone already working on the research.
Source: The Verge, Axios
