Watch these two driverless Toyota Supras simultaneously drifting
- This is the moment two cars took part in an autonomous tandem drift
- The experiment was actually designed to help improve the safety of autonomous vehicles
- It looks really cool – you can check it out in the video below
Published on Jul 26, 2024 at 3:10 AM (UTC+4)
by Claire Reid
Last updated on Jul 26, 2024 at 3:04 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Tom Wood
Check out the almost-hypnotic moment two Toyota Supras drifted autonomously in tandem.
The slick footage, shared by the Toyota Research Institute, shows a world-first autonomous tandem drift—where a driver deliberately spins the rear wheels to break traction, but without the need for a driver.
The two vehicles can be seen drifting around the darkened track with their lights on, managing to completely avoid smashing into each other.
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The autonomous tandem drift was for a very good reason
While the footage looks really cool, it also serves a very important purpose.
Toyota teamed up with Stanford University to carry out the research with the long-term aim of making autonomous vehicles safer.
Prior to the experiment taking place, the two GR Supras were fitted with the tech that allowed them to operate autonomously while they also had their powertrains, suspensions, and safety gear boosted to Formula Drift standards by Toyota’s Racing Development team.
With the cars properly set up to drift, the researchers then hooked them both up to a shared WiFi network that would allow them to communicate with each other.
Smart, right?
Toyota said the cars responded to ‘rapidly changing conditions’
This allowed each vehicle to ‘solve and re-solve an optimization problem up to 50 times per second to decide what steering, throttle, and brake commands best meet its objectives while responding to rapidly changing conditions’.
The study, Toyota says, will help its engineers gain a better understanding of how the autonomous cars will react in snowy or icy conditions – as well as how they will respond to other vehicles, or pedestrians, all of which will go on to improve safety.
As for the results, Toyota and the team at Stanford were pleased with how it all went.
“The result was exactly what we had hoped for — a spectacular yet safe, autonomous tandem drift,” the team said in a press release.
“While your future car may not drift its way to the supermarket, it may very well incorporate some of the motion planning, control, and AI techniques developed in this project to keep you safe when road conditions or circumstances turn difficult or dangerous.”
On top of that, it looked great – what more can you ask for?
Claire Reid is a journalist who hails from the UK but is now living in New Zealand. She began her career after graduating with a degree in Journalism from Liverpool John Moore’s University and has more than a decade of experience, writing for both local newspapers and national news sites. Across her career she's covered a wide variety of topics, including celebrity, cryptocurrency, politics, true crime and just about everything in between.
