Roborace Is The Driverless Electric Racing Series No One Asked For
Remember Formula E? The all-electric single-seater championship that quietly burst onto the motorsport scene last year? Well, now it has announced a new support series featuring 20 identical cars, all of which will be driverless.
It will be a great way of developing autonomous and AI technology, there is no denying that, but will it really work as a motorsport series? Each race will last one hour, with 10 teams (each with two cars) competing on the same street tracks as Formula E.
Roborace is certainly an interesting concept and one that will generate a lot of attention ahead of its debut during the 2016-2017 Formula E season, but it will put viewers in an unusual position. Who do you support? There are no drivers to cheer on, no manufacturers fighting it out. Plus, how can you celebrate a result when there isn’t anyone driving the car? Podium ceremonies will be pretty quick…
AI and driverless technology is still very new and with not much time before the cars hit the track, it will likely be a problematic start. Perhaps the first corner will be chaos like on a racing game. What happens if they spin out or hit the wall? Maybe they will just drive into the barrier, with the throttle to the floor until the motor unit overheats, like in old F1 titles. Or worse, the cars might all drive in an overly cautious manner, making for a boring race. There are lots of potential issues.
Also, the logo is pretty scary, right?
The series also takes away a lot of what makes motorsport great - the talented drivers, wrestling the cars, the human mind at work and the race craft being shown. Watching driverless cars programmed to race around a track will be very different and doesn’t sound particularly fun, although proof will be in the pudding.
The novelty will probably wear off pretty quickly, too. So you’ve seen cars without a driver race a few times, then what? The use of real-time computing algorithms and AI technologies could either create the great racing we all pray for or something completely disastrous, dull and boring.
So, what do you think, are you excited for Roborace, or don’t care whatsoever? Let us know in the poll below!
Comments
Driving Robots vs Actual Drivers in a nutshell.
http://inperc.com/wiki/images/6/6b/Rubber_band_flat.jpg
Gamers know what I’m talking about…
The whole point of a race is to see which car/driver is faster. This satisfies our most basic instinct of competitiveness. And don’t try and ‘’not be’’ competitive, cuz then you won’t get anywhere in life. Man’s desire to be better than his equal causes the drive that we need to become a better person and society altogether. Plus watching a man’s ego being bruised is very funny and exhilarating, 2 things that Roboracing is not, unless it’s remote controlled cars, like a scaled-up version of Scalextric.
Maybe this could be for the best though, if cars were allowed to be developed, we could see a return to the ground force 1200bhp days that everyone loved, but were stopped for fears of driver safety? Driverlessness is not an issue, provided people are still allowed to drive themselves if they want to!
RIP the 202 ppl who voted yes
This is downright scary…
robot wars is back…..
32% of them must be AI
What will they look like?
Wait, the point of racing is to see who’s the fastest driver, with robots, this just degrades into a glorified robotics competition.
Things we learn from the break through by age and by gender
People 35 - 44: they do like us car guys
Girls (only 2): don’t like cars and should be hunted down because they are witches