Yes it is possible! This Toyota drifts around obstacles and does so without a driver. View the images here.
Tesla has some issues with self-driving cars, but it’s the future. However? Well, Toyota thinks so. And when we talk about autonomous driving these days, we usually mean cars that can drive ‘independently’ on the highway. Might be able to spot some hazards on the road and change lanes. Toyota goes a step further and allows a car to drift without a driver.
Toyota drift without driver
The Toyota Research Institute has released a video of a modified Toyota Supra drifting autonomously around obstacles on a closed track. The company indicates that this is the first time that this is possible. When you look at the images it is difficult to determine whether the car is drifting itself or a driver. That is very clever, because the technology apparently works just as well as a human being.
From a marketing point of view, this is of course fun for the car manufacturer. The goal of the stunt, Toyota claims, is not to create cars that can win drifting competitions, but to create autonomous driving systems that can respond in situations where human drivers cannot.
Driving systems
So they are going to learn from it and want to integrate the lessons learned into normal cars. “With this project, we are expanding the region in which a car is drivable, with the aim of giving regular drivers the instinctive reflexes of a professional racing driver to handle the most challenging emergencies and keep people safer on the road,” said Avinash Balachandran , senior manager at the institute.
View the images below.
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