Driverless Cars To Race At Up To 150mph In UK

The organisers of the first all-electric race series has announced plans to ditch the drivers and hold the first fully-autonomous championship as well.

The new series called Roborace will run alongside the Formula E race series which began last year, and sees driverless cars competing against each other completely independently at speeds of up to 150mph.

Organisers say it will provide a competitive platform for the electric autonomous driving solutions that are now being developed by many large industrial automotive and technology players, as well as top tech universities.

Races will take place during the 2016-2017 season, using the same city-based circuits as the Formula E series including London, Beijing and Mexico City.

Ten teams, each with two driverless cars, will compete in one-hour races over the full championship season.

All the teams will have the same cars but compete using real-time computing algorithms and AI technologies.

Denis Sverdlov, founder of Roborace and the race partner Kinetik, said: "In the future, all of the world's vehicles will be assisted by AI and powered by electricity, thus improving the environment and road safety.

"Roborace is a celebration of revolutionary technology and innovation that humanity has achieved in that area so far.

"Just as the mission of the new Formula E sport was to promote and improve electric car technology, the mission of Roborace is to demonstrate the capabilities of driverless cars and improve them through sport."

Alejandro Agag, chief execiutive of Formula E, said: "It is very exciting to create a platform for them to showcase what they are capable of and I believe there is great potential for us to unearth the next big idea through the unique crowd-sourced contest."