Just earlier we were telling you about the perils that await traditional car makers if they don’t adapt to the changes happening in the industry. Like it or not, the popularity of self-driving cars is on the rise but what about self-drifting?
No, we’re not talking about the ED Torq electric, driverless race car here but about a form of art if you were to ask any gear head. Yes, drifting a car could be called art and we’re not the only ones saying that. Now we have robots that can do that though, and they might be pretty good at it as well.
Well over a year ago we were writing about BMW’s latest finding: a car that can drift all on itself. While at first it might sound preposterous, this whole thing was developed for a completely different reason and not for entertaining purposes.
Actually, it was designed to save lives, by swerving around objects that show up in the car’s trajectory all of the sudden, with no chances for a human driver to actually go around. Hey, if we can also use this technology to drift, why not?
That’s what BMW apparently did here, pitting an automated car against a world champion in the motor sport. Of course, the robot had to get some help, which isn’t exactly fair to be honest. As you can see, the asphalt was watered as opposed to the champ’s side that was absolutely dry, but we’re interested in the results, so we’ll let that one slide (pun surely intended).
At the moment, the video below is only a teaser of the full experiment but we’re really intrigued to find out what they learned from the process.
If used as it was intended to in the first place, the technology that allows cars to actually drift by themselves could indeed save a lot of lives since no human can react as fast as an automated device but there are still plenty of hops to get past until we actually get this technology in our cars.
Until then, and until we actually get to see the full video let’s enjoy this teaser!
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