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Watch a driverless Audi tear up a racetrack at 120 MPH

Published Mar 2nd, 2016 7:10PM EST
Driverless Car Race

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Self-driving cars are the future of transportation, and the future is almost here. Google has been testing driverless cars for years now with great success, and there are even towns that already use self-driving electric busses to cart people around. But do autonomous race cars take things too far? Is that really something we want to see?

OK fine, it’s pretty cool to see a driverless car tear up a racetrack at 120 MPH.

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Engineers at Stanford University have created an autonomous car that we’ve discussed a few times here in the past. In fact, just over a year ago we watched as the researchers’ driverless Audi beat a real race car driver in a race for the first time ever. It was a truly impressive feat, and now the self-driving Audi has returned to the track in a new video.

As fun as it is to watch Stanford’s autonomous Audi TTS hit speeds in excess of 120 MPH though, mechanical engineering professor Chris Gerdes and his students are more interested in other aspects of the car’s track performance.

“A race car driver can use all of a car’s functionality to drive fast,” said Gerdes. “We want to access that same functionality to make driving safer.”

The full video is embedded below, and Stanford News’ report on the professor and how he’s using his self-driving car to make the roads safer can be seen here.

 

Zach Epstein
Zach Epstein Executive Editor

Zach Epstein has been the Executive Editor at BGR for more than 10 years. He manages BGR’s editorial team and ensures that best practices are adhered to. He also oversees the Ecommerce team and directs the daily flow of all content. Zach first joined BGR in 2007 as a Staff Writer covering business, technology, and entertainment.

His work has been quoted by countless top news organizations, and he was recently named one of the world's top 10 “power mobile influencers” by Forbes. Prior to BGR, Zach worked as an executive in marketing and business development with two private telcos.