Apple Has Leased a Bunch of Cars from Hertz. Why?

Remember all those rumours about Apple building its own car? Not gonna happen, but Apple is very, very deep into the dashboard and into research of autonomous vehicles. Their latest move is to lease a small fleet of Lexus SUVs for…something. From Bloomberg.

Apple Inc. is leasing a small fleet of cars from Hertz Global Holdings Inc. to test self-driving technology, an agreement that echoes a larger deal between competitorsAlphabet Inc. and Avis Budget Group Inc. Hertz shares soared the most in almost two years.

The iPhone maker is leasing Lexus RX450h sport-utility vehicles from Hertz’s Donlenfleet-management unit, according to documents released recently by the California Department of Motor Vehicles. When Apple received its license to test three autonomous vehicles from the state’s DMV in April, the documents listed Donlen as the lessor and Apple as the lessee.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment, while a representative for Hertz didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday. A half-dozen vehicles have been testing Apple’s autonomous technology on public roads in and around the San Francisco Bay area for at least a year, a person familiar with Apple’s project told Bloomberg earlier this year.

Read the whole story and see a report here.

In other news, Apple has finally admitted that iPhones and iPads are computers.