The Delphi Autonomous Car Just Completed the Longest Ever Self-Driving Trip in North America

By: | April 7th, 2015

Delphi Automotive’s Audi Q5-based prototype autonomous vehicle has successfully completed the first coast-to-coast trip ever taken by a self-driving vehicle.

The nine-day trip, which is considered the longest automated drive ever in North America, covered approximately 3,400 miles from San Francisco to New York, in fully automated mode 99 percent of the drive.

Delphi engineers were able to collect nearly three terabytes of data from the autonomous adventure, a massive amount of data when it comes to a relatively new technology.

“Our vehicle performed remarkably well during this drive, exceeding our expectations. The knowledge obtained from this trip will help optimize our existing active safety products and accelerate our future product development, which will allow us to deliver unsurpassed automotive grade technologies to our customers,” said Jeff Owens, Delphi chief technology officer.

Impressively, the Delphi autonomous car encountered and was able to maneuver around/within traffic circles, construction zones, bridges, tunnels, aggressive drivers and a wide range of weather conditions.

Technologies onboard Delphi’s autonomous vehicle:

  • Integrated radar and camera systems
  • Collision mitigation
  • Lane departure and forward collision warning

You can watch highlights of the trip below, which encompasses the vehicle crossing 15 states and the District of Columbia.

Delphi’s Entire Coast-to-Coast Trip:

Marshall Smith

Technology, engineering, and design enthusiast.

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