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Apple Discloses Minor Crash Involving Self-Driving Test Vehicle

Apple disclosed with the California Department of Motor Vehicles that one of its autonomous test vehicles was involved in a crash.

Apple Discloses Minor Crash Involving Self-Driving Test Vehicle
A crash test dummy sits behind a deployed airbag inside a damaged automobile following a crash test (Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg)  

(Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. disclosed in a filing with the California Department of Motor Vehicles that one of its autonomous test vehicles was involved in a crash.

This is the first time a collision involving an Apple autonomous vehicle has been reported by the California DMV. The car, a Lexus SUV in self-driving mode, was rear-ended by another vehicle when it was preparing to merge onto a highway in the Bay Area called the Lawrence Expressway, according to the report. Both vehicles sustained damage but no injuries were reported, the filing added.

On the afternoon of Aug. 24, Apple’s car was traveling at less than 1 mile per hour, while the car that rear-ended it, a Nissan Leaf, was moving at about 15 miles per hour, according to the report, which was filed by Steve Kenner, who works on Apple’s driverless tech project.

The Lawrence Expressway is a multilane highway that runs north to south through Silicon Valley. It is notoriously congested, making merging into traffic particularly challenging.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Gurman in San Francisco at mgurman1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net, Alistair Barr, Emily Biuso

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.