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On October 23, for the first time in Indianapolis 500 history, cars will participate in a special 20-lap race minus drivers, open to the public, with a $1 million prize for the winner.The autonomous vehicles, entered by student groups from nine countries, will be controlled by numerous computer systems, cameras, and lidar sensors. Teams will program the cars to run laps around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway using artificial intelligence. Indianapolis Motor Speedway is the most legendary racetrack in the world, known for sheer speed and unadulterated horsepower. This Saturday, nearly a dozen modified Dallara II-15 Indy Lights chassis will take to the 2.5-mile oval and reach three-digit speeds in a special 20-lap race.But with one exception. Make that one major exception.For the first time in IMS history, the cars will be missing one of the most vital components any type of motorsport event must have.Namely, drivers.That’s right, there will be no humans behind the wheel. In fact, none of the vehicles even has a driver’s seat, as IMS plays host to the first-ever Indy Autonomous Challenge, presented by Indianapolis-based nonprofit Energy Systems Network (ESN). After nearly two years of development and testing, 10 teams made up of students from 21 universities and from nine different countries will match wits and technological expertise in The Challenge for a $1 million top prize.

Indy Autonomous Challenge

“In many ways, [Saturday] is about showcasing the culmination of two years of work by dozens of universities that have been advancing the state of the art in software to pilot autonomous vehicles, and then validating that over a period of months in the real world with 60-plus days of track practices at [nearby] Lucas Oil Raceway and IMS,” ESN president/CEO Paul Mitchell told Autoweek. “What you’re going to see is high-speed, autonomous race cars circling the Indianapolis Motor Speedway at speeds in excess of 100 miles an hour. And that, in and of itself, is going to be both a record in the sense that no one’s done it before, but also . . . [there is] this extra level of shock and awe that there’s nobody driving the car.”

While the cars will look and feel like race cars, the technology being used will likely be seen much sooner on regular cars we drive on the streets. But at the same time, that’s not to say some of the technology on display Saturday won’t find its way into IndyCar, NASCAR stock cars, and other motorsports vehicles sometime in the future.”We are interested in it because of the city and state’s benefits, because of the opportunity to remind people that this is a place where innovation has occurred historically, and maybe we’ll learn something from this technology development which could be helpful and relevant to IndyCar drivers in the future,” said Mark Miles, president and CEO of Penske Entertainment, which owns IMS, the IndyCar Series, and other entities.But, Miles emphatically pointed out, no matter how far advanced the technology goes forward in coming years, one thing is for certain.”This has nothing to do with taking drivers out of cars,” Miles said. “It’s very easy for people to not understand or to not know how to juxtapose an autonomous racing vehicle being on the IMS track. On the one hand, it’s our absolute commitment to driving, drivers, and cars.”
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“So we’re not talking about taking drivers out of cars. And we’re not interested in some kind of ongoing autonomous racing. Again, every time I explain that, I’m careful to make sure people understand that that’s a way to assist drivers. It’s not to replace them.”Like other autonomous vehicles, the cars are controlled by numerous computer systems, cameras, and lidar (similar to radar) sensors. Teams will program the cars to run laps around IMS using artificial intelligence.

Indiana politicians and celebrities including Gov. Eric Holcomb, U.S. Senator Todd Young, Indianapolis mayor Joe Hogsett, as well as officials from major original equipment manufacturers, and more than 400 high-school students from across Indiana will be on hand to view the proceedings. And parts of The Challenge, most notably the actual race itself, are open to the public. Tickets are $10 but must be purchased online by Friday. COVID-19 protocols will also be in place for spectators.There are also a number of well-known advisors for the Challenge, including former race car driver Lyn St. James, MythBusters host Jamie Hyneman, SEMA vice president of technology John Waraniak, Google self-driving team founder Sebastian Thrun, and several others.Juncos Hollinger Racing, which competes in IndyCar, Indy Lights and Indy Pro 2000, is also heavily involved, providing assembly, service and maintenance of the vehicles.The Challenge is only the second time such a large-scale event of its type has been held. Back in 2004, the forerunner of today’s autonomous vehicles, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge, was held in the California desert.In a sense, this weekend’s Challenge is designed to take AI and autonomous vehicles to the next level, with race cars as the platform to be utilized. What makes things even more challenging for teams taking part is they only have one car to utilize; unlike IndyCar or NASCAR, teams cannot go to a backup car if a mishap occurs.

Indy Autonomous Challenge

“I think if we would have done it without a venue like the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, we might have gotten some universities participate, but we wouldn’t have gotten 41 universities from 11 countries to answer that call,” Mitchell said. “There’s something about the compelling idea of developing technology and showcasing it at the most prestigious venue in that industry in the motorsports industry. That’s important.”The level of technology, the kind of supercomputers, the 360-degree perception systems, the data that is coming off of these vehicles, and then the robust AI and machine learning algorithms that are making decisions on these vehicles is far beyond what you have in today’s traditional motorsports app competitions. So there’s a lot of interest because, frankly, some of this technology, it’s not just about making a driverless car, or going around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, it’s about making commercial vehicles that we drive and perhaps vehicles that are in motorsports competitions, like Indy cars, safer at faster speeds.”If you’re going to get a future where IndyCar drivers can go 250 or 300 miles an hour, they may need some help from a 360-degree perception. Humans can only perceive things that they can see or sense, right? You don’t have eyes in the back your head. How many times have race-car drivers said over the years, ‘Boy, I wish I had eyes in the back of my head’? Well, our cars do that. They can see and perceive everything around them.”Another reason for holding The Challenge is especially noteworthy in today’s world, particularly with the emphasis on reducing global carbon emissions and climate change. According to The Challenge organizers, “the efficiency gains of automation could reduce overall vehicular energy consumption by 60 percent.”

Another key element is potentially reducing deaths and injuries from crashes, particularly in the United States. “With 94 percent of the more than 40,000 annual automotive deaths in the U.S. caused by ‘human factors,’ advancements in vehicle automation have the potential to save tens of thousands of lives,” material from organizers states.The one-day Challenge includes several symposiums and meetings prior to the main event, a 20-lap race, which will wrap up the day’s eight-plus hours of activities.Granted, IMS is known for having some of the racing world’s most spectacular crashes over the years. Mitchell was asked how the teams will essentially keep their vehicles off IMS’s unforgiving walls.

Indy Autonomous Challenge

“Our approach to it really is not that different than the approach that that the IndyCar Series or Indy Lights Series takes in the sense that these cars really don’t wreck all that differently,” Mitchell said. “If they go into the wall, they go into the wall. One thing I will say is we’re not yet pushing 230 miles an hour like IndyCar. So you get a little bit of a benefit that if they get the wall at 100 mph, or even 120 mph, it’s a little different than 230 mph.”I mean, if you’re not getting some level of accidents, you’re not pushing the envelope of what’s possible and the teams aren’t progressing. Luckily, we haven’t had a lot of these things happen, maybe less than a handful. And so on race day, we’ve got race control, first of all. If there’s something that they’re not seeing, that’s not looking correct, if the cars starts wobbling in weird ways, the team can communicate with race control, they’re seeing something. We basically have a red button, if you will, that we can press that will shut the vehicle down and bring it to what we call safety stop.”The car’s ability to follow race control commands, we tried to approach it very much similar to a race control interaction with a human driven vehicle. The nice thing is if there is an accident, there’s really no risk of a human being injured, or certainly no risk of loss of life and those kinds of things.”Several racing organizations are adapting various technological improvements in their own race vehicles. NASCAR will debut its state-of-the-art Generation 7 car next season. IndyCar debuts its “hybrid” race car in 2023. NHRA drag racing is also developing its own version of hybrid vehicles, particularly those that may someday operate solely on electric/battery power.Miles has long had an interest in autonomous vehicles and potential application of that technology to motorsports. He was speaking at a symposium at Stanford University a couple of years ago when the idea of The Challenge came up. Miles quickly offered up IMS as the host facility and has been significantly involved in the planning of The Challenge.”I love the idea because I really do relish the fact of history that Indianapolis Motor Speedway was founded and created to be a place where innovations could be developed,” Miles said. “It’s not about me, but we’ve all been involved here and things which brought different sectors of the community together, not-for-profit, economic development, state/city to advance the economy of the region.”While it’s unlikely The Challenge will become a yearly event at IMS, it will serve as a stepping-off point to potentially have additional smaller competitions either in the U.S. or globally as the development of technology and AI continues to evolve.
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“First and foremost, we want to get through the 23rd and see what happens,” Mitchell said. “These are $1-million-dollar-plus race cars, if you look at the amount of money that’s invested in each one of them. And the teams have put two years into the development of their autonomous technology. So, I don’t think it’s a one-and-done type of thing. I don’t think you run these vehicles one time at IMS, and then put them in a museum somewhere on the college campuses.”I think there’s a lot of desire from our teams, our sponsors, the industry, frankly, to find ways to showcase these vehicles into the future, whether that’s in other venues, whether that’s back at IMS. [It’s all] to be determined, but it’s definitely something that we’re going to put some thought to on October 24, the day after this competition.”No one’s really looking at, hey, let’s do an autonomous racing series. That’s not what we’re looking to do coming out of this. It’s about validating this technology in a motorsports platform, and perhaps transitioning it to human driven cars. Because, really, where some of these technologies are the most beneficial is when they’re combined with human capabilities on top of robotic capabilities.”The 9 teams competing in the Indy Autonomous Challenge: • AI Racing Tech – University of Hawaii, University of California San Diego • Autonomous Tiger Racing – Auburn University • Black & Gold Autonomous Racing – Purdue University, United States Military Academy at West Point with Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (India), Universidad de San Buenaventura (Colombia) • Cavalier Autonomous Racing – University of Virginia • EuroRacing – University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy), University of Pisa (Italy), ETH Zürich (Switzerland), Polish Academy of Sciences (Poland) • KAIST – Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (South Korea) • MIT-PITT-RW – Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Pittsburgh, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Waterloo (Canada) • PoliMOVE – Politecnico di Milano (Italy), University of Alabama • TUM Autonomous Motorsport – Technische Universität München (Germany)

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There are stories behind the 10 vehicles—including a 2015 Mini Cooper S, a 2002 BMW 530i, and the 1999 Nissan Maxima pictured above—that people just left behind at the Pittsburgh airport last year, but sadly, we don’t know them. What we do know is that they are all going on the auction block this weekend.If used vehicles aren’t your thing, how about industrial-strength snowplows? Get your winter work done in mere moments with the same tools the airport used to keep the runway clear.In 2020, in an online-only auction, most of the abandoned vehicles found new homes, but some didn’t, like a 2002 Suzuki Grand Vitara and a 2004 Saturn Ion.Enough people simply abandon their vehicles at the Pittsburgh International Airport each year that the Pittsburgh Airport Authority holds an annual auction to get rid of the growing collection. This year, the auction is set for this coming weekend—Saturday, October 23, at noon—and it’s the place to be if you’re looking to snag someone’s old, unwanted vehicle.

Joe R. Pyle Auctions

Ten passenger vehicles, all of which at some point were parked in the public parking lot and never picked up, will be up for sale this weekend. They include, in addition to the 2009 Nissan Titan and 2002 BMW 530i pictured above, a 2007 Chevy Impala, a 2015 Mini Cooper S, and a 2007 Pontiac G6. For those of you looking to really up your snowplow game this winter, the airport is also auctioning off some of its old equipment, including six Oshkosh Sweepster Snow Eliminators and a KME 2002 Runway snowplow with over 1100 hours of service. A few unclaimed lost-and-found items are also part of the auction this year.

Since these are not your usual used-car sales, don’t expect to drive away in your new used car should you win an auction. As these are abandoned vehicles, the Airport Authority needs to apply for a title for each vehicle with PennDOT, and it can then take 90 or more days to get that title, and more to transfer it from the Airport Authority’s name to the name of the successful bidder.Due to COVID-19, the 2020 edition of the airport’s annual auction for around 30 pieces of retired equipment and abandoned vehicles was held online only (with an internet premium of 15 percent). This year, Joe R. Pyle Auction Services is accepting online pre-bidding for the various vehicles up until the live auction starts, but there is no online live component for the auction, although there’s a livestream to view it. While we don’t think last year’s sales offer up much of a preview for what might be in store for bidders this year—used-car prices are a bit different now compared to a year ago—it is still interesting that in 2020, a 2006 Nissan Murano with around 150,000 miles sold for $1100, a 2012 Chevrolet Silverado with 57,000 miles sold for $18,250, and a JLG Model 260 MRT scissor lift sold for $12,750. All bidders passed on a few vehicles that were up for auction last year, including a 2002 Suzuki Grand Vitara, a 2004 Saturn Ion, and a 2002 Chevrolet Cavalier.
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When Mopar announced a 1000-hp crate engine called the Hellephant, it was hard to hide our disappointment. Sure, a four-digit horsepower number out of the box sounds great, but it was hard not to think the company had called just a bit short of the Goldilocks figure. The good news is that Chevrolet agrees, which is why the company is announcing a new, one-thousand-and-four horsepower engine. That’s right, the newest big-block crate motor from GM makes 1004 hp and 876 pound-feet of torque on pump gas. The ZZ632/1000 does so without a turbo- or supercharger, relying instead on displacement alone. It’s got plenty of that; the 632-cubic-inch engine is massive, with a 10-liter capacity that shames even monsters like the Bugatti Chiron and Dodge Viper.

That’s more than any road car would ever need. But this thing is built for racing. The massive iron-block engine can take a beating, with Chevy noting that a prototype has weathered over 200 simulated drag races on a dyno without failure. We can’t even imagine what kind of power it could make with forced induction, but you’d struggle to find a blower that’d fit. If you can get by with just 1004 hp, the ZZ632/1000 goes on sale in early 2022. Pricing hasn’t been announced, but the 621-hp ZZ572/620 with which it shares an engine block mold goes for $16,304.82. Expect this to land north of that figure.

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A new generation of Land Rover’s Range Rover luxury SUV will arrive on October 26.We expect the 2022 Range Rover to be more luxurious and more modern than before.Look for Land Rover’s inline-six engine to be standard, with V-8 and hybrid powertrains optional.CLARIFICATION: Land Rover confirmed to C/D that the new model will arrive in the U.S. for the 2022 model year, not 2023 as this article previously stated. The current, outgoing Range Rover is already in its 2022 model year, so we’re not sure at this point how the company plans to differentiate the two in terms of naming convention, or if the old and new models will be sold alongside each other.The iconic Range Rover will enter a new era soon, as the latest generation will make its debut October 26. Land Rover has released a few teaser photos of the new 2022 Range Rover in anticipation, including a blurry profile shot and a close-up of the front badge. As expected, the luxury SUV will maintain its boxy shape but looks to have more modern detailing, with a look similar to that of the Range Rover Velar.

Land Rover

Full details will be coming soon, but we expect the Range Rover to offer Land Rover’s 3.0-liter inline-six combined with a 48-volt hybrid system as the standard engine. A supercharged 5.0-liter V-8 will likely be optional, as it is on the Defender, and a plug-in-hybrid model may join the lineup later on as well. Inside, we’ll likely see a comprehensive infotainment update, along with all manner of fancy materials available including leather, wood, and aluminum.The current model offers short- and long-wheelbase variants, plus ultra-luxury Autobiography models, and we think that will continue into the new generation. That means that the price range will likely be wide, starting just under $100,000 and ranging up to around $200,000 for the top versions. A redesign of the smaller Range Rover Sport will likely follow by a few months.Look for more details to come on the 2022 Land Rover Range Rover lineup next week as we find out more about this new flagship luxury SUV.
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A new generation of Land Rover’s Range Rover luxury SUV will arrive on October 26.We expect the 2023 Range Rover to be more luxurious and more modern than before.Look for Land Rover’s inline-six engine to be standard, with V-8 and hybrid powertrains optional.The iconic Range Rover will enter a new era soon, as the latest generation will make its debut October 26. Land Rover has released a few teaser photos of the new 2023 Range Rover in anticipation, including a blurry profile shot and a close-up of the front badge. As expected, the luxury SUV will maintain its boxy shape but looks to have more modern detailing, with a look similar to that of the Range Rover Velar.

Land Rover

Full details will be coming soon, but we expect the Range Rover to offer Land Rover’s 3.0-liter inline-six combined with a 48-volt hybrid system as the standard engine. A supercharged 5.0-liter V-8 will likely be optional, as it is on the Defender, and a plug-in-hybrid model may join the lineup later on as well. Inside, we’ll likely see a comprehensive infotainment update, along with all manner of fancy materials available including leather, wood, and aluminum.The current model offers short- and long-wheelbase variants, plus ultra-luxury Autobiography models, and we think that will continue into the new generation. That means that the price range will likely be wide, starting just under $100,000 and ranging up to around $200,000 for the top versions. A redesign of the smaller Range Rover Sport will likely follow by a few months.Look for more details to come on the 2023 Land Rover Range Rover lineup next week as we find out more about this new flagship luxury SUV.
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Porsche has released the first photos of the Cayman GT4 RS.This is the ultimate performance version of Porsche’s 718 mid-engine sports cars.It’s likely to have a naturally aspirated 4.0-liter flat-six, possibly with over 500 horsepower.While it is normally possible to reliably set a watch by the steady cadence of Porsche’s model launches, we have been waiting longer than expected to for the RS version of the Cayman GT4. Now it’s nearly here, as the company has released images of a lightly disguised prototype version during testing surrounded by some spectacular Alpine scenery.

Beyond official confirmation of the car’s existence—and the announcement of its Nürburgring lap time of 7:09.3—other details are slight at the moment. RS models are more track focused than the GTs they are based on, and we believe the new Cayman will use a developed version of the naturally aspirated 4.0-liter flat-six engine found in the existing Cayman GT4. We will have to wait a while longer for power and torque figures, although the fact that the RS has lapped the Nordschleife 23.6 seconds quicker than the existing GT4 suggests a substantial increase in firepower. We previously predicted it will make up to 500 horsepower.
The images show that the GT4 RS has been given a substantial aerodynamic workout, with an extended front splitter, covers over what appear to be aero-exit vents on the front fenders, and a substantial rear wing with a design similar to that of the current 992-generation 911 GT3. The test mule’s yellow brake calipers also indicate that Porsche’s PCCB carbon-ceramic brakes are present, although we will have to wait to see if those are standard fitment or reserved for the options list.
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Images from the cockpit also show paddle shifters behind the steering wheel, demonstrating that the prototype is running with Porsche’s PDK double-clutch transmission. This is unsurprising given the RS’s mission of delivering ultimate track performance, although we still have some hope that the confirmed production version will also be offered with the six-speed manual transmission that is still available in the regular GT4. The official release also confirms that the GT4 RS will be available with optional Michelin Pilot Cup 2 R tires, which are street legal but designed for hard track use. There is no word on price, but we can safely presume that Porsche will charge a significant premium for what will be the ultimate performance version of the 718 Cayman; be surprised if the base price comes in below $130,000. We’ll bring you more details as soon as we get them.

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