OREANDA-NEWS. Apple acquired Drive.ai. This is a project founded by machine learning specialists from Stanford University. The company is developing the technology of unmanned vehicles. The fact of buying at Apple was confirmed by Axious and The Verge. The amount of the transaction isn't disclosed. 

Drive.ai appeared in 2015. She quickly became one of the leading players in the field of autonomous vehicles. In May 2018, the company conducted the first tests of an unmanned vehicle on public roads - the car moved on the streets without human help. Having successfully conducted tests, in the summer of 2018, the company launched a pilot program in the city of Frisco: several unmanned Drive.ai minivans worked as a taxi in one of the districts of the city.

The cost of a startup at the peak was estimated at $ 200 million. However, the project was torn down by the slow development of the autonomous car industry. Several years ago, investors expected that in the near future unmanned taxis on the roads would become the norm, but today some experts predict that it will take years to fully launch this type of transport. Money from Drive.ai is over, new investors could not be found and the company was preparing for closure. At that moment, Apple bought it.

Apple has ambitions to create your own car. The company has been working on it for the last few years. The project is known as Titan, while Apple’s official information on the research is almost not available. Experts from the investment company Jefferies Group predict that until May 2020, the electronics manufacturer’s shares could grow by more than 6% - up to $ 210 per share. At the time of writing, Apple shares are trading at $ 197. Analysts polled by Refinitiv, believe that Apple's securities are undervalued by 8.4% and shouldn't cost less than $ 212.