Driverless race car sets a new autonomous speed record

is transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State. Look out: there’s a new fastest robot in the world. A Maserati MC20 Coupe with no one in the driver’s seat set a new land speed record for autonomous vehicles, reaching 197.7mph (318km/h) during an automotive event at the Kennedy Space Center last week. The Maserati was running self-driving software developed by Politecnico di Milano, Italy’s largest scientific and technological university. The team also worked with the Indy Autonomous Challenge, which most recently ran at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway during CES 2025. 197.7 > 192.2 In the shadow of NASA’s iconic Space Shuttles, the race car flew down the 2.8-mile runway at record-breaking speeds, surpassing the 192.2mph record that was also held by Indy Autonomous Challenge and PoliMOVE, set by an IAC AV-21 race car in April 2022. The achievement is noteworth ... Read full article.