Driverless electric van cruises 8,000 miles from Italy to China without stopping for directions

They made it. The team from Visilab, which left way back in July, has arrived in China and will now take its place among the various other random things going on at the Shanghai World Expo. As you may or may not recall, a gaggle of autonomous orange EVs left Italy three months ago on a trip that would take them through cities like Moscow and wastelands like the Gobi Desert, all thanks to an array of laser scanners, cameras, and of course GPS. It was a 13,000km journey (8,078 miles) that was made with minimal driver intervention and, thanks to the EV-nature of the vehicles, without stopping once for gasoline -- though they were limited to about four hours of travel each day before having to recharge. Now, remember when you were impressed that Google's autonomous car managed about 1,000 miles on its own?

Driverless electric van cruises 8,000 miles from Italy to China without stopping for directions originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Oct 2010 07:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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