A Self-Driving Vehicle is about to Race at the Goodwood Festival of Speed

[Tbear]

I guess as always the most sane stance is to just not force anything. Enforcing or forcing against technology is both foolish.

However, this one is easy. Just make a rule requiring a human be aboard and controlling the vehicle. It would be like the rules requiring 4 ti(y)res.

 

[Andrew Harper]

Purely from a design point of view, I think it looks pretty cool.

As a concept, experimental project? Ok, yes it is relevant, even if only for the road car crossover potential. The technology will hopefully be developed at a quicker rate, which is something motorsport is great at doing.

As a sport? Well that's the thing. Most people only watch motorsport for the drivers, they don't have much interest in the cars (I'm just generalising, don't shoot me down in flames! lol) so the idea of rooting for a robot car or team is not something I can see people getting into.

I suppose the only thing that might save it, is numbers. If we had say 35 of these things racing that would be an great sight. Whereas if we are only watching 6 of them going round a Formula E circuit, it will be incredibly dull...

 

[Mike Kadlcak]

I wonder if this thing will even beat an old timer there at Goodwood

 

[formidable]

That's a shame for the motorsport

 

[cski68]

As a race car, utterly pointless - racing is a test of human skill in process, not just preparation.

Love it, I will use that on LinkedIn. There is a ton of guy's just counting the days until it's all Autonomous, I think it will be a few decades or never.

 

[JusTiCe8]

I can understand the need for pilot-less fighter aircraft, but pilot-less racing cars?

Call me old fashioned I guess.

The dream of Frank Williams ("why paying so much for this idiot who complains all the time ?")

By the way for those who are not bike fans, Yamaha made the MotoBot:

But as bike may require more of the body to ride well, it's not yet ready

 

[larre90]

All these sensors will consume more energy then the engine. *future's ahead...*

 

[Craig Dunkley]

I am not against technology ..but a racing car without a racing driver is just not my cup of tea ..the cost and time involved just seems pointless me.

 

[Patrik Marek]

unless they strap rocktes on it and make them shoot other cars, I can't see this being fun to watch

interesting from technology point of view for sure! but as a spectacle ? not sure

 

[Durge Driven]

Sim racers can't even deal with a bit of visual input lag on screen, never mind the kind of lag you'd get from being on the other side of the world.

Who knows what speed and lag will be like in the future, that will naturally progress

Driving a real car from a simulator has got to be better then a helicopter as Nissan did

P.S.
I thought of this 20 years ago when I had remote control cars
You would use your simulator to drive the cars from anywhere and compete in races

People said the cameras would be too heavy when now we have HD lenses and cameras are minuscule ....like phones

1/8th scale , 50hp electric with alloy mast to mount cameras 3 / 4 feet high

 

[NtsParadize]

Autonomous + electric = worst possible thing ever

 

[Turk]

Who knows what speed and lag will be like in the future, that will naturally progress

It would need to naturally progress past the speed limit of the universe though.

 

[chrisracer]

Why would I want to watch this? Kind of pointless if you ask me.

 

[Bernd Graf]

Death knell of motorsport. Everyone getting excited about this ought to have their heads examined. "Tech R&D?" More like another step in the dehumanization of another aspect of our lives. Soon, we'll control everything from a remote...and no longer desire to DO the driving ourselves.

"Here Mr. Car, go to the grocer's for me...I don't want to get my feet wet, and certainly don't want to see other people...god forbid!"

Belongs in the same bin as electric cars. We are living in the golden age of motorsport...and it may be ending soon.

 

[Damage Inc]

As long as the research can be implemented into racing game Ai I'll be happy! Guy Martin did an interesting show about this sort of thing (could be the same team for all I know), he helped them calibrate the software, IIRC the Ai couldn't beat a motorcycle racer driving a car, god knows how far off a professional car racer it would be. Oh and I think the car lost control when the tyres cooled off.

We will have to invent proper adaptive thinking Ai and the second we do that I'm certain we're doomed. Once robots can think for themselves and adapt their programming they'll quickly realise man is inferior and dangerous.