Watch these two driverless Toyota Supras simultaneously drifting

Check out the almost-hypnotic moment two Toyota Supras drifted autonomously in tandem. 

The slick footage, which was shared by the Toyota Research Institute, shows a world-first autonomous tandem drift – where a driver deliberately spins the rear wheels to break traction, only 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

And 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, well – 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.”

And it looked great – what more can you ask for?