It's Ugly, It's Bizzare and It's Just Not Cricket - Introducing the New Roborace Car...

[Kevin Bradley]

As a proof of concept type thing - fair enough. As a spectator sport- no thanks. Just about as interesting as watching a computer playing itself at chess I would imagine.

 

[Rodent]

Probably the most road relevant form of racing, I don't see it ever becoming more then a gimmick in terms of motorsports but so what. Alot of sports we practice today started out with the idea of teaching the practitioners or displaying the practitioners prowess at warfare or whathaveya yet are today purely sports, a lot of series would probably benefit from being allowed to be purely sport and not billed as a way to drive road car technology forward.

In short, road relevancy and motorsports are about to go their separate ways and Roborace highlights this very well.

 

[Alex72]

Exactly what i meant. Tech point of view = excellent. Spectator point of view = nerds into tech, AI and futuristic design.

 

[Andrew Harper]

Also, I understand it's about your personal opinion @Paul Jeffrey but I'd much rather read actual articles about roborace than loaded "articles" whose only prupose is to downplay and question the existence of exciting new tech.

He isn't giving his personal opinion, he's loading the article to get a response from people, which worked!

The previous article on here about Roborace was largely negative so I can understand his references to that.

The car itself looks pretty cool actually, but as most passing motorsport fans support the drivers rather than the cars (and the technology) I think this will struggle initially.

Maybe if they link it to a VR feed for each car, then you can ride with the car through your VR headset. Just an idea to try and get people to get interested in it

 

[Andy 'Mars Bar' Graham]

I think this will struggle initially.

I think the series will always struggle....

 

[Sky]

they need to have a rival series where racing drivers run around a circuit without a car. bet it'd be more entertaining.

 

[LeSunTzu]

The "car" looks great to me. And it is far from useless. The technology developped for those little beast may well end up in the AI-driven cars of the future, those our children will use to commute and work, not those they will use only for fun.

 

[Queequeg]

they need to have a rival series where racing drivers run around a circuit without a car. bet it'd be more entertaining.

That's called the Olympics, dude!

 

[Blimey]

Robots fighting, didn't get much attention, neither will this. Truly sorry if my opinion hurt your feelings, deepest sympathies.

 

[Rodent]

Hey now, Robot wars was awesome, it had that dude from Red Dwarf in it and everything. If they want an actual viewership for this, that's the way to go. Make the Roboracers dodge deathbots, giant lizards etc. I'd be game. Road relevancy might take a slight hit though...

 

[Ernie]

Feed these cars with AI of Raceroom, rFactor2, Assetto Corsa, Automobilista and PCARS. (e.g. 3-5 cars each)
It would be quite interesting to watch. And funny for sure.

 

[Ricoow]

I could be wrong here @Paul Jeffrey , But I thought there has already been a test race at Buenos Aires EPrix with two cars.
One of them crashed.

 

[Keith Joyce]

Also I couldn't care which robot wins. None of the robots have any character or any sort of personality, so I have no reason to get behind anyone.

I get the same feeling every year during 'Sports Personality of the Year'...

 

[Paul Jeffrey]

He isn't giving his personal opinion, he's loading the article to get a response from people, which worked!

He gets it

Now to clarify about my opinion. I feel driverless civilian and military vehicles may be the future, although it isn't something I personally like, but I understand the benefits.

Should this technology be tested in a racing environment, and should said environment be pushed as a future for our sport then I would say no.

I think a concentrated and supported development programme based around their use in road and combat situation would be of more benefit to the technology development than setting up a series that is to be perfectly honest one big gimmick.

Now normally I appreciate that putting tech into motorsports is usually a fast track way to develop something for the road, and in terms of stuff like ABS, ERS and such that has worked really well. Even battery development in Formula E has been progressed quicker because of it's motorsport connections, all of which is not in doubt at all.

Now can a driverless series in racing cars branded up as an alternative racing solution really help the development for deployment into road cars and other such stuff? I honestly don't think it will. I really think proper testing in simulated environments would be a better and more efficient way of developing the technology. Unfortunately imho the move to launch a racing series just invites scorn and criticism from fans, and almost immediately devalues the whole product. If it was branded up as a technology test and less of a realistic racing series that would help too I suppose... I remember once speaking with someone from the promotion side of the developers and they really pushed the "its the future of motorsport" side of things, which to be perfectly frank turned me off immediately.

So do I think the tech is cool? Oh hell yes! Do I think it's impressive what they have achieved? Again a resounding yes. Do I think driverless tech will have a place in road and combat life? Yes again, although the longer it takes to hit my personal car the better... Do I think it should be branded up as a racing series - No, no and no again. It goes against everything that I considered man vs machine.

But hey, it's nice to at least have the debate

 

[Andrew Harper]

they need to have a rival series where racing drivers run around a circuit without a car. bet it'd be more entertaining.

Fan Boost means the driver gets a bottle of Lucozade and a protein bar...

 

[LeSunTzu]

I do not see what's the problem with a robocar racing series. Competition is the most efficient way to boost a technology development. And robocar racing does not replace standard racing and it won't do it in the future.

People had the same kind of negative reactions with the first chess computer competitions. The fact now is that a cellphone can beat 99% of amateur competition chess players and a decent computer will beat any human world champion in a match. That does not prevent thousands of amateurs from playing tournaments every week-end or the chess elite to compete in super tournaments with large audience and prize funds.

 

[Rodent]

I agree LST, but I doubt many would enjoy a game of between computers before the championship duel in chess. I also think automated cars real competition is not going to be on a racetrack but rather who can produce a safe and cheap consumer car. The cars in Roborace are most likely the future of roadcars, but not of motorsports.

 

[Kevin Bradley]

I appreciate all of the side benefits it may bring in terms of cross-tech development etc, but I just cannot personally see myself watching it from a spectator point of view. Once the lights go out there is no skill, bravery and endeavour. It will just be bots making mathematical decisions based on what they've been programmed to do.

 

[Thomas Lambaerts]

I believe there will be spectacle! Eventually... First they need to learn to get the car to the end of the race. Like in early 1900's. It wasn't always the fastest car that won. Heck even in Le Mans series now, it's often not the fastest ones.
Once they get to feeling confident to push for more aggressive AI, then things start to get interesting. Don't forget, they still have to do their personal setup that works with their AI program. After all that, how do you cope with the track changing? It's the AI that has to work it out during the race. Tyres dropping off, rubber build up, rubble, ... ?
With a grid of 10+, do you go for a aggressive AI that might run out of grip in the last lap but tries to overtake aggressively? You build the AI to find non ideal lines to try the overtake, like humans do. To find a place were sacrificing a corner to get next to the other guy/car in front of you and blocking them from taking the ideal line. After the overtake it's back to buisiness about ideal laps.
With their being hardly any car to speak off. My guess is that drafting is not that good.
If i learned anything from F1 is that there might always be the prefered strategy which is the fastest one in theory. But after 1 lap can already be out the door. (example: a flat tyre after 20% of the race. New tyres mean that the AI has to push faster to catch up but it has newer tyres so it can. And still has to pass them) "The difference between theory and practice. Is that in theory there is no difference"

While there might not be a driver driving the car. There still is a team behind them. Who doesn't root for a racing team? Take Ferrari, it has massive fans. What if ferrari did a driverless racecar? What if they open up the cars in a couple seasons to develop them? Make them inhumanly fast?

And why? if you worked in a very big company you might have noticed how many driverless forklifts there already are. Or driverless trucks. Most severe trucking accidents happen because the driver is not paying attention to the road ahead and rear ending a traffic jam... I know it might take away jobs, but it will replace them with something else. Maybe not as many jobs but someone still has to build the AI and sensors for the trucks. And maintain them. Cheaper transport makes for cheaper goods. And you can make an AI run during the night only etc... An AI has no family it needs to see, or sleep. A road AI needs to be able to drive on the limit of grip, it needs to know what to do in case of an unexpected event. Tree falling on the highway, tyre blowout in front of you,...

ps: sorry guys, dang long post

 

[aphidgod]

I don't understand how anyone could mistake this for cricket. Or for a good idea.