Driverless Innovators Gather at Autonomous Track Day

Burney Simpson

A blue-chip group of autonomous gearheads will gather in northern California May 28-29 for the first ever Autonomous Track Day at Thunderhill Raceway Park.

This gathering of the autonomous tribes is in Willow, Calif., about 175 miles north of San Jose.

According to the Self Racing Cars website, organizers are seeking to attract those that want to test autonomous vehicles, drivetrain innovation, sensors and cameras, software and algorithms, connected cars, and other technology surrounding driverless technology.

Organizers list the following as signed on to attend:

Custom engineering firm Ansync Labs,

Hardware house AutonomouStuff,

Autonomous car developer comma.ai,

Electric race car builder EV Race Systems,

Camera and cloud sensor developer Nauto,

Software platform PolySync from Harbrick,

Auto OEM Renovo Motors,

‘Stabalized’ camera firm Revl,

LiDAR firm Scanse,

3D camera house StereoLabs,

Autonomous shuttle/car Varden Labs,

Venture capital guys Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory,

Autonomous car developer Zoox,

That much brain power in one place could tilt the Earth’s axis.

The event lead is Joshua Schachter, the founder of Angel Investor and creator of the del.icio.us community bookmarking website, and Tasty Labs. Yahoo purchased del.icio.us in 2005, and Walmart Labs acquired Tasty Labs in 2013.

Schachter said in an email that the event is “a test day. There will be sessions for vehicles to test on track. There are also sessions for the data acquisition companies to record data for publishing.”

The Track Day is not intended for racing, though “there may be informal lap time measurements,” according to Schachter. “I don’t think any of the cars can deal with other vehicles on track yet.”

Other Track Day organizers include Harbrick’s Josh Hartung, Renovo CEO Chris Heiser, and Innovect’s Mark Dadgar.

There may be future events, even racing, if the first Track Day goes well.

Image by Renovo Motors.