“WHATEVER you do, don’t stand in front of the vehicle,” shouts Chris Urmson. He is about to test-run Sandstorm, an adapted Humvee that is the favourite to win the title of fastest autonomous vehicle in the world – not to mention a $1 million prize – in a desert race from LA to Las Vegas.
Urmson, a graduate student from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, jumps into a separate car and pushes a button on a wireless box. Sandstorm is off. We chase its plume of red dust at around 40 kilometres per hour over rugged desert terrain, while Urmson’s finger…
