Driverless race cars are slated to be the next big thing. Yes, it's happening!
Russian businessman Denis Sverdlov, who founded London investment firm Kinetik, has made headlines recently after announcing a prototype similar to an F1 race car, Auto News reported. However, this time, the lime-green vehicle is less a driver.
Apart from this latest venture in driverless technology, Sverdlov is already introducing Roborace, which is a car racing series without a human driver behind the wheel to maneuver the track. Just like the Formula E e-drive speed-racing competition, drivers outrun each other via software which controls the cars in all effort to win.
Not only does Sverdlov think of human safety in using the Roborace series for an adrenaline kick, he aims to push technology's limits and erase the anxiety behind the arrival of self-driving vehicles.
Nvidia suministrará cerebros RoboCar para Roborace Fórmula E Series https://t.co/bxNFO83hDb pic.twitter.com/SMoYg7pklK
— ESIME Azcapotzalco (@esimeazc) April 25, 2016
At a conference held by Nvidia Corp., Sverdlov said that he considers the company's engineers as its heroes. He has Daniel Simon, an ex-Volkswagen auto designer responsible for the Disney reboot of the sci-fi film "Tron", a part of his design team for the Roborace prototype. Sverdlov added that when the public sees how these virtual drivers perform during extreme conditions, he is optimistic that it would be easier for people to be with them on public roads altogether.
The Roborace series is expected to launch at next year's Formula E season, yet critics are not entirely convinced of Sverdlov's driverless racing series. Experts are still waiting on Sverdlov's announcement as to how the company would arrive at its target speeds (at 180 mph) or where the cars are coming from, according to the publication.
In other news, Formula E feels it is alright for Kinetik's Roborace to join in the highly anticipated competition, in a PC Authority post. Formula E said in media statement that over ten teams would be competing for the one-hour race using driverless cars, as well as AI systems at the same time.
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