Re: Ambivalent? That's a bit optimistic.
@Roland6 ..... It would be easy to get them to go around the track fast (that, without the fast bit was demonstrated by the DAPA Urban Challenge of 2007), but it's not so easy to work out what the other cars in the race are doing. As such it would be an excellent technology demonstrator. It would be neat to run the race in two parts. The first race with the cars communicating so they are all aware of each others position, vector, expected path and rate of acceleration. The second race would be fully autonomous.
It won't happen though as the high performance car is going to beat the low performance one from another manufacturer even if the autonomous "driver" is better. Also by virtue of it being perceived as a race the cars would be pushing the limits of their autonomous technology just as F1's push the limits of manual car technology. Accidents would happen and this would be portrayed by some as a failure of self driving technology, so the manufactures would inevitably collude to make it a safe but slowish procession ...... and a hideously boring spectator sport.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
