Roborace Teases ‘Wild’ Car Design for First-Ever Driverless Car Race Series
Jennifer van der Kleut
They almost look like giant-sized Hot Wheels toy race cars.
Roborace will be the world’s first racing series solely for driverless electric cars, and this week, they teased the first design for the race cars.
The Verge reports, it’s no surprise the cars look “wild,” as Roborace announced in February it had hired Daniel Simon to design them. Simon famously designed the futuristic “light cycles” featured in the sci-fi movie Tron: Legacy.
As The Verge describes, “The four-wheeled autonomous vehicles appear to be covered in sensors and look wickedly aerodynamic, with bodywork that covers up all the internals and massive openings around each axle.”
How will the cars work? GQ.com explains, “The movement of the cars will be determined by algorithms built into the cars’ software by engineers.”
GQ explains, the competition is all about the efficiency of the software that powers the car’s movements.
“All cars in a race will be physically identical, with teams focusing purely on the software,” they explain.
Roborace CEO Denis Sverdlov told GQ.com he believes Roborace will be hugely successful, and play right into the hands of everything car enthusiasts want.
“Its gaming, motorsport, technology and entertainment all rolled into one,” says Sverdlov. “I passionately believe that the future of cars is about software; driverless, electric and connected, and Roborace will help to make that a reality,” Sverdlov said.
They’re also expected to go really, really fast. Sverdlov told Wired UK last fall that the cars could go as fast as 300 km per hour, or 186 miles per hour.
“[That’s] good enough to make them the fastest autonomous cars in the world,” The Verge says.
As The Verge points out, Roborace holds the potential for big revenue, too. Though no sponsors have been announced yet, “Another thing is obvious with this car: there is plenty of room for branding,” The Verge says of the exterior of the car. “On the technical side of things, it’s easy to understand why the series could draw big name automotive manufacturers that are working on autonomous technology.”
We won’t have to wait long to see them in action either, it seems. News outlets are reporting that as of now, Roborace is on track to debut as a support series in the Formula E season later this year or in early 2017. Formula E is the leading race series for high-performance electric cars.