Earlier this year, we spoke with Audi R&D chief Ulrich Hackenberg about the prospects and requirements for autonomous cars. At the time, he told us that he had defined two situations that an autonomous car must be able to handle. One of them was getting a car from the left lane of a three-lane autobahn to a safe stop by itself—important if, say, the driver suffers a heart attack. The other one intrigued us: The car needs to be faster on a racetrack than Hackenberg himself. Nota bene: Hackenberg is a talented race driver.
Audi may be closer to reaching the latter target than we thought. On October 19, a driverless RS7 will circle the Hockenheim racetrack “about as fast as with a professional race driver” and “with millimeter precision,” Audi claims. The twin-turbo V-8 hatchback will reach up to 150 mph, and the company believes it will take just over two minutes to lap the track. Testing has commenced, and the actual performance will take place at this season’s final DTM race.
We think that this kind of autonomous driving could be fun. “Officer, the car was doing it all by itself!” Now, how about autonomous drifting?
Read Article