We were headed south on Interstate 395 leaving Washington, D.C., when Kaushik Raghu, principal engineer of Audi’s autonomous driving program, pressed a button on the steering wheel to engage one of the most sophisticated self-driving systems being tested today. A band of turquoise-colored lights across the top of the dashboard illuminated, a chime sounded, and the steering wheel retracted about two inches, all serving to inform the human driver that the system has claimed control.
With the handoff confirmed, our test ride in Audi?s latest autonomous prototype proceeded uneventfully. We passed over the Potomac River, past Ronald Reagan Airport and then the Pentagon, home of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which nourished serious interest in autonomous vehicles in the early part of the 21st century. Following those early days, Audi built this autonomous A7 prototype. It was nicknamed Jack (as in jackpot) after it drove to Las Vegas, 550 miles from its starting point in the San Francisco Bay Area. It has since conducted tests on three different continents, and Jack remains the veteran workhorse of the brand’s testing fleet, which also includes other cars with human names, such as Robby, the racetrack-driving RS7.
In this latest iteration, Jack employs 23 sensors, including front- and rear-facing lidar, and is outfitted with a fresh batch of Silicon Valley software that allows human drivers to turn over driving responsibility to the autonom...