Autonomous Lexus RX Completes Epic Cross-Country Trip
Groundbreaking three-week, 5,300-mile journey began July 7 and covered over 4,300 miles autonomously.
For whatever reason, everybody testing self-driving technology these days seems to love slapping their gear onto used autonomous Lexus RXs. We imagine it’s because they’re so darn comfy on long journeys, which is exactly why Blacksburg, Virginia-based Torc Robotics chose the SUV for their latest three-week trip, which spanned over 5,300 miles. Incredibly enough, 4,300 of those miles were completed autonomously.
A total of four humans — three certified safety drivers and one Torc engineer — did ride along for the cross-country trip. The drivers took turns sitting behind the wheel in the event that they might need to intervene, which, in case you were wondering, they did not. And traversing such diverse terrain through ever-changing weather conditions helped Torc collect some invaluable data.
The journey began back on July 7 in Washington, D.C. From there, the autonomous Lexus took the crew to Seattle before heading back to Richmond and rolling into Capitol Square, where it was greeted by Gov. Terry McAuliffe. The governor then got to take a spin in the self-driving SUV and came away quite impressed.
“That was something,” McAuliffe told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “This (autonomous driving) technology is coming, and we want to be in front of it here in Virginia. We want to be the leader.”
The autonomous Lexus certainly attracted its fair share of attention on the long journey as well, which might have something to do with the big, spinning lidar system on the roof. Not to mention the various cameras, radar equipment, and pair of GPS antennas visible on the outside. Inside, however, a dash-mounted tablet serves as the only obvious addition.
This latest milestone just shows you that we’re a lot closer to autonomous driving than many think. And so long as we can do it in a Lexus (and have the option to still drive it ourselves), we think that’ll be just fine.
