Toyota Pulls Off a Fast and Furious Demo With Dual Drifting AI-Powered Race Cars

Losing traction while driving at high speed is generally very bad news. Scientists from the Toyota Research Institute and Stanford University have developed a pair of self-driving cars that use artificial intelligence to do it in a controlled fashion--a trick better known as "drifting"--to push the limits of autonomous driving. The two autonomous vehicles performed the daredevil stunt of drifting tandem around the Thunderhill Raceway Park in Willows, California, in May. In a promotional video, the two cars roar around the track a few feet from one another after human drivers relinquish control. Chris Gerdes, a professor at Stanford University who led its involvement with the project, tells WIRED that the techniques developed for the feat could eventually help future driver-assistance systems.