Photo: Roborace
The dog bone-looking thing you see above is the self-driving race car from Roborace, the world’s first driverless racing series. It is bringing the Robocar to the 2018 Goodwood Festival of Speed to attempt the first-ever fully autonomous hillclimb.
The course is 2km long with nine turns total. The car relies solely on its automated systems via sensors that give it 360-degree vision and navigate hay bales along the course, as well as the S-bend around a wall near the top.
A custom, fully immersive VR experience will be set up at the Roborace booth, where visitors will be able to watch the run from the Robocar’s point of view. The car itself weighs just under 1,361kg and has a combined 500-plus horsepower.
Yours truly drove the course last year. It took me about two minutes, which is a terrible time. But I also wasn’t allowed to go very fast. I hope Robocar at least beats my time.