California DMV executives requested a meeting with Apple on March 16, 2018. The meeting was held on April 2, 2018, macReports learned via documents requested pursuant to the Public Records Act. This is particularly interesting because the meeting request came from DMV, not Apple.

The meeting was requested by Bernard Soriano (Deputy Director – DMV). Bernard Soriano contacted Steve Kenner (Apple) to arrange the meeting.

We have learned that six DMV executives joined the meeting. They were:

Bernard Soriana (Deputy Director)

Jean Shiomoto (Director)

William Davidson (Chief Deputy Director)

Brian Soublet (Deputy Director and Chief Counsel)

Emily Bisnett (Attorney)

Alexandra Lake (Executive Fellow)

The meeting was planned to last 2 hours.

The meeting was held at Apple’s 1 Infinite Loop headquarter offices. We do not know who participated from Apple besides Steve Kenner in this meeting.

We know that during the meeting the group discussed autonomous vehicles. The title of the meeting was simply ” Meeting with Apple”. In fact Bernard Soriano emailed Steve Kenner on April 5 to thank him for the meeting. In the email, he further pointed out one issue that was discussed during the meeting by saying “Just following up on an issue that was brought up regarding turnaround times for drivers enrolled in the EPN program. We checked with the Deputy Director over that program. Sonia Huestis (cc’d), and it looks like there isn’t a backlog. Do you have some specifics on the issues that were brought up? Sonia and her staff can track that down and see what and why there are bottlenecks”.

See also: Apple’s Autonomous Car Application