Gallery: Audi's Self-Driving Car Hits 150 MPH on an F1 Track
Audi01Audi self-piloted RS7 hockenheim lap
Audi's self-driving RS7, dubbed "Bobby," lapped the Hockenheimring in about 2 minutes, 10 seconds.
02Audi self-piloted RS7 hockenheim lap
It precisely hit each of the 17 turns, topping out at 149 mph. It completed the lap in roughly 2 minutes, 10 seconds, about 30 seconds slower than the times posted by the professionally-trained humans in the DTM races held after the Audi demonstration.
Audi03Salt-Flats-Experience-1
Audi likes high-speed tests. Its self-driving TTS took on the Bonneville Salt Flats in 2009.
Audi04Audi self-piloted RS7 hockenheim lap
The RS7 is equipped with Audi calls zFAS (short for zentrale Fahrerassistenzsteuergerät), “a central brain like the one we have in our head.”
Audi05Audi self-piloted RS7 hockenheim lap
One thing Audi wants to add to its car next, Mueller says, is the ability to automatically and suddenly change lanes to avoid collisions on the highway. To do that, it has to know how the car handles at extremes.
Audi06Audi self-piloted RS7 hockenheim lap
The Hockenheim lap, which doubled nicely as a PR stunt, gave Audi the chance to collect that data.
Audi07Audi self-piloted RS7 hockenheim lap
But watching an autonomous car patiently wait to turn left at an intersection is way less fun than seeing one barrel around a Formula One track, and the public relations significance of that isn’t lost on the Germans.
