Posted Monday, September 7, 2020 at 10:11pm

Apple is using Subaru Imprezas with old garbage-can Mac Pros to map the US

Early this year, Apple officially finished rebuilding Apple Maps in the US. Still, it’s constantly improving its map data and map-based features. Today, 9to5Mac shared some exclusive details about how Apple operates its mapping vehicles and how it manages the data they capture.
According to internal materials seen by 9to5Mac, Apple’s 3D Vision team cruises around in a fleet of white Subaru Imprezas. The vehicles are equipped with high-res cameras and LiDAR scanners that combine computer vision and machine learning data to generate 3D images on Apple Maps. All of that data is processed by a 2013 Mac Pro and stored in four SSDs with 4TB of storage each. Those can hold up to about a week of mapping data, and Apple uses UPS to ship the SSDs back to its offices.