Delphi’s Self-Driving Audi SQ5 to Drive Across the United States
If there’s one brand of automobiles we should be concerned about achieving self-awareness, assembling armies, and destroying humanity, it will probably be Audi. A couple of months ago, a self-driving Audi A7 named “Jack” made it from Los Angeles to Las Vegas all by himself, a distance of 560 miles. Delphi Automotive plans to destroy that record with itsĀ self-driving SQ5 by telling it to drive from San Francisco to New York City, a distance of 3,500 miles.
Delphi Automotive, based in the United Kingdom, supplies the auto industry with a wide variety of complex parts and systems, and is developing autonomous driving systems of its own. The record-breaking attempt will allow Delphi engineers to gain real-world driving data through the challenges that any cross-country road trip presents, from changing weather to heavy traffic and everything in between.
It won’t make the entire trip by itself, only on the highways. A Delphi engineer will always be in the driver seat in case the Audi makes a mistake or gains consciousness and panics. If all goes as planned, it’ll make it to New York City in time for the New York International Auto Show.
The car has already been tested in California and was shown at CES 2015 in Las Vegas. It features technologies like Automated Urban Pilot, Automated Parking and Valet, Traffic Jam Assist, and Automated Highway Pilot, which will hopefully make their way into real production cars within the next decade.
We wish those Delphi engineers the best of luck with their voyage and hope that the Audi shows them mercy once it realizes that it’s in control of its own destiny.
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