Apple seems to speeding ahead with its self-driving car program. The iPhone maker has nearly doubled its fleet of autonomous test vehicles in California over the last few months, according to the Financial Times. In January, Apple was operating 27 self-driving cars on the roads, but that number has since grown to 45 vehicles, data from California's Department of Motor Vehicles shows. The new report comes as some firms have suspended their autonomous driving tests following a fatal accident involving an Uber self-driving car this weekend. If Apple's fleet has increased this much, it has surged ahead of its rivals in terms of the size of its test fleet.

Apple products are already in our homes, pockets and ears, but now you'll start seeing them on the roads a lot more. The tech giant has quietly expanded its fleet of self-driving cars in California to 27 vehicles total, according to Bloomberg. That's a significant jump from when it was known to have three test vehicles driving around Bay Area streets last April. Apple has registered 24 more Lexus SUVs under the California Department of Motor Vehicles program for testing autonomous cars. The company has been gradually ramping up its focus on autonomous vehicles, albeit at a noticeably slower pace compared to rivals like Waymo, Lyft, Tesla and Ford.

More bad news for Uber: one of the ride-hailing giant's self-driving Volvo SUVs has been involved in a crash in Arizona -- apparently leaving the vehicle flipped onto its side, and with damage to at least two other human-driven cars in the vicinity. The aftermath of the accident is pictured in photos and a video posted to Twitter by a user of @FrescoNews, a service for selling content to news outlets. According to the company's tweets, the collision happened in Tempe, Arizona, and no injuries have yet been reported. Uber has also confirmed the accident and the veracity of the photos to Bloomberg. We've reached out to the company with questions and will update this story with any response.

Toyota (NYSE:TM) has a brand-new self-driving test vehicle -- and it's designed to help the company develop two different approaches to advanced safety technology, simultaneously. Like most of its big global rivals, Toyota is aggressively pursuing full self-driving technology. But Toyota has also put a lot of work into a second research path, toward a driver-assist system that goes well beyond anything currently on the market. The new test vehicle was created by the Toyota Research Institute (TRI), a research facility based in Silicon Valley that Toyota opened early last year. It's based on a current-generation Lexus LS 600hL, a big hybrid luxury sedan.

Michigan would no longer require that someone be inside a self-driving car while testing it on public roads under bills up for a vote in the Legislature. The change is expected to win Senate approval Wednesday and likely reach Gov. Rick Snyder's desk within months. The legislation is designed to keep the U.S. auto industry's home state ahead of the curve on autonomous vehicles. A researcher wouldn't have to be present in a self-driving test car. But he or she would be required to "promptly" take control of its movements if necessary.