Roborace Just Revealed What Its Driverless Race Cars Will Look Like
When Formula E first announced that it would have an autonomous racing support series, motorsport fans were understandably skeptical. To get people excited about the racing, Roborace hired Daniel Simon, the man behind the iconic Light Cycle from 2010’s Tron: Legacy, to create a unique design unlike anything racing had ever seen; it’s completely driverless and will race using real-time computer algorithms and the latest AI technologies.
“My goal was to create a vehicle that takes full advantage of the unusual opportunities of having no driver without ever compromising on beauty,” he said. “Racing engineers and aerodynamicists have worked with me from the beginning to strike that balance”.
As for the performance of the all-electric cars, Dennis Sverdlov, the founder of Kinetik, the company behind Roborace, told Wired that the cars will reach speeds in excess of 186mph.
Roborace will be a support series for the 2016/2017 Formula E season, where 10 teams of two cars will compete in hour-long races over the full championship. The good news for those looking to get into motorsport is one team will be a crowd-sourced community team for software engineers and tech experts.
Comments
We all know it will soon just turn into this:
That… Thing should clearly show the mark of Satan, it’s creator.
Driveless race cars? WHAT THE FLYING *€#%@!!!!
What is the point of racing if it doesn’t involve a driver
1:1 RC car racing.
True
It will be boring as hell to watch too. No crashes, skids or typical human error, no cheeky paint swapping.
I think I’ll pass
I agree Jonathan
This is unacceptable, when people race, you don’t know the end of possibilities the race could have happen.
What’s the point?
Utterly pointless
It will either be brilliant or an absolute failure. And if I’m understanding this right, all the cars will be programmed (?) differently, so we won’t have each car setting the exact same qualifying time, and keeping the exact same gap to the next car in the race. Probably
I thought race cars were supposed to concentrate on downforce? I don’t know much about aerodynamics, but that doesn’t look like its generating the needed levels of downforce
But… No more chrashes?
Am I the only one who’s OK with this?
yes