All right, so this is impressive. We just don’t like the thinking they’re leading us down… driverless cars? Even more poignantly, driverless racecars?? No no no no no, that can’t and won’t ever be right. Rather just junk cars and develop teleportation or something!
Apparently, this latest intelligent car from the Stanford robotics team in collaboration with the VW Group can drive at speeds of up to 130 mph, and evidently from the video even knows how to drift! Admittedly, drifting an AWD car on gravel is hardly the same as D1GP drifting but still.
And they actually plan on entering Pike’s Peak, “The race to the Clouds”, next year with this machine…
Now yes, sure, these technologies help make road cars safer and protect the unskilled from themselves as well as the performance potential of their chosen steeds but really, why not just build a robot tennis player to save us all from dreaded tennis elbow, or how about a robot beer-drinker so we don’t kill of brain cells? Talk about sapping all the fun out of one of the most enjoyable things we’re still legally allowed to do in our lives.
I hope it crashes off the side of the mountain and burns to a smouldering wreck. It probably won’t though, considering the success these same brainiacs have had with the various DARPA Grand Challenges in recent years. Clever yes, cool a deafeningly resounding NO!
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