Four bright orange vans that captured the world’s imagination in early summer are now half way through their epic journey.
The four vans set off from Parma, in Italy, to a fanfare farewell from environmentally friendly organisations from all over the globe on July 26th with the intention of arriving in Shanghai in time for the World Expo 2010.
What was so special about the vans? Well apart from being bright orange, they are completely powered by natural fuel. Solar panels on the vehicles produce the electricity to operate the autonomous driving system and green fuels will power the rest of the vehicle. Oh yes and the vans have no drivers! The vehicles are being driven by a collection of sensors, cameras and advanced motoring technologies tied together with the use of satellite navigation. It is the brainchild of Italian professor Alberto Broggi.
Although the vans are driverless and can be used without any humans in the vehicle, for much of the time various members of the expedition have sat in the back seats of the vehicles in case of emergencies. They have, however, demonstrated the vans autonomous driving system at every planned stop.
The good news emerging from their special website is that Europe has now been well and truly left behind as the group have travelled over 7,000 of their total 13,000 kilometres. The laser scanners, sat-navs and special cameras appear to be working a treat. The back up team who do intermittently have some input on the vans are confident now they have reached Almaty that they will achieve their target and be in Shanghai for the expected date.
They report that at times the vans have been travelling at 100 kilometres an hour. More than enough one would imagine giving any commercial vehicle insurance broker heart failure, especially without a driver.
So far the vans have travelled through major cities such as Milan, Rome, Belgrade Kiev and Moscow and now the hard work has been done they hope to travel quickly through China to arrive in Shanghai for October 28th.
The project has been funded by monies from various European Union funds and overseen from the Vislab laboratories at the University of Parma, Italy.