A self-driving Audi SQ5 leaves Mountain View next Sunday and arrives in New York City the following Sunday. If there are 3500 miles to cover divided amongst six engineers, who will spend every waking minute arguing about sensor algorithms, the best craft beer, and whether Taylor Swift is hotter than Emma Watson, in what state will the car fry its brain and strand them?
That may be a question in which Delphi, for all its expertise as a tier-one auto supplier, can’t answer until it completes the first-ever coast-to-coast drive in an autonomous car. The idea is a simple, real-world test of all the automated lidar, radar, infrared, video camera, steering, braking, and throttle systems that automakers (and Google) claim to work so well without a human being. On March 22, six Delphi engineers will leave the company’s office in Mountain View, California, wave goodbye to Google, and let their software guide them out of the Bay Area and into the netherworld that is Middle America. Just kidding—they won’t all be in the SQ5, since that car only seats five (in a pinch). Some will be in a chase car that will ride along as the team collects two terabytes of data, or 125 times what your 16GB iPhone can store.
Audi, which has demoed heaps of autonomous technology for several years, including a 550-mile trip from Palo Alto to Las Vegas in January, has nothing to do with Delphi’s road trip. (Audi instead relies on components from Autoliv and Continental, among other suppliers.) The Delphi engineers just liked the SQ5’s structure—perfect for mounting and storing all the hardware—and its 354-hp supercharged six, which the software will not take to enjoying, not even through Kansas.
In fact, no automaker is using Delphi’s autonomous driving assists aside from a radar/camera setup on the 2016 Volvo XC90. Despite its longtime relationship with General Motors, Delphi also isn’t involved with Super Cruise, the semi-autonomous feature set for Cadillac (likely the CT6). But after this drive, Delphi is hoping to score more customers. They’ll be testing features we’ve seen before, including automated valet parking, highway lane changes, city driving, and a traffic jam assist—which BMW now offers on the new X5—that essentially upgrades the low-speed adaptive cruise control seen on many luxury cars.
- Look World, No Hands! Self-Driving Audi Makes 550-mile Pilgrimage to Las Vegas
- Audi SQ5 Full Coverage: Review, Instrumented Test, Specs, Photos, and More
- Don’t Tear Up Your License Yet: Here’s Why Autonomous Driving Is Still a Long Way Off
But while Google has logged more than 700,000 miles in its self-driving fleet and the Mercedes S-class can be hacked to drive itself with a soda can, no one has sampled the tech across this many states. As for legality, while only four states and Washington, D.C. have formally passed autonomous car testing rules, no states outlaw self-driving cars provided there’s a licensed driver sitting a the wheel. And for the record, the correct answer is Taylor Swift.
from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/1ACd8uW
via Agya
