Formula E Announces 'ROBORACE' - The First Autonomous, Driverless Car Racing

Short Bytes: Formula E is featuring autonomous car racing called “ROBORACE”; the first race is planned for the 2016-17 season. Ten teams will field two driverless cars each in races lasting an hour each. ROBORACE is a celebration of revolutionary technology and innovation that humanity has achieved in automobile area so far.

Formula E, the all-electric motorsport series, announced today that it will launch a driverless car racing concept as a support category. The news flowed from a press conference this morning in London with Formula E’s chief Alejandro Agag and technology investment business Kinetik.

In the press release, Denis Sverdlov, founder of Kinetik and ROBORACE, said:

We passionately believe that, in the future, all of the world’s vehicles will be assisted by AI and powered by electricity, thus improving the environment and road safety. ROBORACE is a celebration of revolutionary technology and innovation that humanity has achieved in that area so far. It’s a global platform to show that robotic technologies and AI can co-exist with us in real life. Thus, anyone who is at the edge of this transformation now has a platform to show the advantages of their driverless solutions and this shall push the development of the technology.

Further support for both Formula E and ROBORACE shall come from Charge, an automotive start-up founded by Kinetik that develops revolutionary range-extended electric powertrains for commercial vehicles.

Charge will become Official Truck Partner of the FIA Formula E Championship and will provide electric trucks for the drivers’ parade, towing trucks for emergency recovery of the racing cars and shuttles for transportation of guests and visitors of the championship around the eVillage.

Alejandro Agag, CEO of Formula E, said:

We are very excited to be partnering with Kinetik on what is surely one of the most cutting-edge sporting events in history. ROBORACE is an open challenge to the most innovative scientific and technology-focused companies in the world. It is very exciting to create a platform for them to showcase what they are capable of and I believe there is great potential for us to unearth the next big idea through the unique crowd-sourced contest.

I am excited and afraid, it seems like auto-bots are really coming sooner than we expected.

What do you think about ROBORACE? Add your views in comments below.

Also read: Microsoft Developing Driverless Car Technology With Volvo and HoloLens
[adinserter block=”12″][adinserter block=”13″]