Engineers show how an autonomous, drifting DeLorean can improve driver safety

As the DeLorean rolled to a stop and the cloud of tire smoke cleared, Jon Goh peeked out the sliver of the passenger-side window to see dozens of gathered spectators cheering and high-fiving the successful test. The crowd, and anticipation, had built throughout the afternoon, while Goh, a recent mechanical engineering Ph.D. graduate from Stanford, had been outlining a kilometer-long obstacle course in traffic cones at Thunderhill Raceway in Northern California. The sun was setting fast, but Goh and his co-pilot, another grad student named Tushar Goel, couldn't wait until morning to take a shot at the twisty course. Besides, MARTY, the driver, didn't need to see the track--it needed only GPS coordinates and the algorithms on Goh's laptop to chart its path. MARTY is a 1981 DeLorean that Goh and his colleagues at Stanford's Dynamic Design Lab converted into an all-electric, autonomous drift car.