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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

An autonomous Lexus RX hybrid completed its 5,300-plus mile, round-trip cross-country journey at Virginia’s Executive Mansion on Wednesday afternoon [richmond.com].

For the bulk of the trip, the vehicle drove more than 4,300 miles autonomously.

The self-driving vehicle, programmed by Blacksburg-based Torc Robotics, started its journey July 7 in Washington, D.C., headed west to Seattle, returned east to Richmond and was greeted by Gov. Terry McAuliffe in Capitol Square.
...
Three certified safety drivers and one Torc engineer went on the cross-country trip. The safety drivers rotated time behind the wheel for the duration of the trip to assist the car in case of emergency.

Along the nearly three-week journey, Torc Robotics CEO and co-founder Michael Fleming said, many people photographed the vehicle, which is equipped with a large, spinning lidar (light detection and ranging) system mounted to the roof, an array of radar, video cameras and two GPS antennas. Radar systems also are hidden inside bumpers.

Inside the car, the only noticeable modification is the addition of a tablet mounted on the center console. All the car’s sensors feed data into a computer in a compartment below the trunk.

The dashboard has three indicator lights: green to let the driver know all is going well; yellow appears when the car detects a minor obstacle that the driver should know about; and red for when it’s time to hand controls back over to the driver.

This was not Torc’s first long-distance test. One of the company’s cars logged over a 1,000 miles during a round trip from its headquarters in Blacksburg to the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit — the birthplace of the Model T.

Why has no one christened any of these cars "Herbie [imdb.com]" or "Ocho [imdb.com]" yet?

Original Submission