Self driving cars and the impact on racing

We all know that racing is one of the best proving grounds for the auto and motorcycle industry. As I drove into work today after watching a documentary on self-driving cars, I got to thinking.

Will this kill racing as we know it today? Will the sponsorship dollars eventually come to a halt? Worse yet, let's say that the sponsor dollars stay due to companies wanting to develop technologies. Will the drivers be removed?

Motorcycles will be a little bit safeguarded due to the fact that you kind of need a person to operate them more so than a car, but down the road....who knows.

Cuss and discuss.......

 

Yamaha already has a robot rider. http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/motobot-yamaha-motorcycle-robot-beat-humans-on-racetrack/

 

Once the internet hackers start causing deaths and crashes from these self driving cars, they will stop being built haha I Fukin hope

 

Driving will be one of those things that we old folks did, and kids will rally around the picture of fire on the TV, and we will tell them all about how we did it ourselves.

It will be a real loss to us, but 94% of the public really does suck at driving.

 

The question is, will self-driving cars draft self-driving semis to save power?

 

Yes. Because unlike Lever, the Car will be talking to the Semi and know when the Semi will have to brake.

 

Racing is entertainment. As long as the audience is still tuning to see drivers drive there will be money and there will be a series regardless if the technology is outdated or not.

 

I've had this discussion on reddit a couple of times. What is it exactly that makes people think self-driving cars are right around the corner from replacing today's cars/drivers? I mean, alternative fuel and electric vehicles aren't even the majority yet.

 

What else is left for the bike to do other than steer itself? It already handles a rider giving too much throttle or too much braking.

 

There used to be a time when every drive was a good drive. Now, going to work downtown or the long highway drives would be much better spent sleeping or working or whatever. Wouldn't it be awesome to just set your coordinates before going to sleep and waking up the next day at destination ? Add the fact that traffic would be reduced, safety enhanced and energy consumption much more efficient with drafting, less accelerations and braking, etc. It's bound to happen very soon. I'm sure we sill see it going mainstream in this lifetime.

Of course, some drives are nice, but most of the time, it's become a drag.

I don't see it changing racing in the same way the arrival of motored vehicles didn't change bicycle racing.

 

Self driving cars are all about safety. Racing is about performance and risk taking. I don't see a robot car putting itself (the technicians wouldn't want that) at risk to make a pass. No, it won't have an effect on racing.

 

Jay Leno (no slouch at driving) barely beat an autonomous S7 around a racetrack. I can see a not too distant future where a club racer can't beat a computer controlled car. I doubt this will stop human drivers in cars from racing anytime soon. Eventually I can see the combination of people that can't drive for themselves and safety advocates lobbying to remove the drivers from the race cars winning out. As stated above it will start as a separate series. Motorcycles will eventually follow, after all, if a Segway or electric scooter can balance itself (hopefully without catching on fire), I can see the self driving motorcycle coming too. The interesting part will be outriggers for when it stops or even scarier, it will balance well enough to not need them?!?!?!

 

Having ridden in one of Google's self-driving car, I can tell you that I'm excited for the possibilities of them. People have no idea how much human error causes their commutes to suck. The reality is that the majority of people don't like driving and they suck at it, and the self-driving technology is getting really good, very quickly.

You're already seeing the tech at scale in all of the avoidance features of new cars.

How will it impact racing? it's all speculation, but robots racing motorcycles isn't that far off, as noted in the Motobot journey. With the advancements in cognitive computing, and algos we'll see self-driving/racing machines in our lifetime. Should be fun.

 

Gyros. Problem solved.

 

As a racer who often travels 8 to 19 hours to various tracks, oh yeah, bring me that self driving car and hook a trailer to it.

I'll field calls from clients and make productive use of the travel time and let the computers do the math.

Even today's technology is a huge help. Adaptive cruise control is like high-speed internet; once you have it, there's no going back to dial-up.

After 12 hours on the road, I feel much better and more alert than without it.

 

And the solution itself poses other problems (energy consumption, too much stability for good handling, when you run out of power your bike falls over, etc.) I am sure those issues can be solved as well, but it isn't quiet as simple as "solved".

 

There is at least one company working on a self balancing two wheel electric, enclosed motorcycle. The claim is the gyro system involved can generate over 1300ft/lbs of torque to keep the Lit Motors C-1 upright. I'm trying to find the video where they showed a prototype with a strap from the bumper of a Jeep tied to it's roof dragging the bike, sideways but always upright along pavement trying to tip it over.

 

Drove my friends Beamer X3 on trip. Almost got rear ended twice when it suddenly slammed on the brakes. I'll pass on these "improvements".

Disconnected the ABS on my '96 4Runner for similar reason.