Victorville (CA) – This could be world’s first autonomous burnout and crash of a Toyota Prius.  At the DARPA Urban Challenge qualifications in Victorville California today, the Golem Group's “Golem 3” bot ran most of its course smoothly, but after a computer glitch and code readjustment, it turned sharply left, burned out its tires and crashed into the curb.  The crash hurtled the car over and flattened one tire.

Video of Golem Group's burnout and crash

Afterwards team members told us that their vehicle experienced a “feedback error” and the computers didn’t recognize that it was accelerating.

The qualification runs continue on to Wednesday October 31st.  Afterwards DARPA officials will select the top 20 teams for the November 3rd race. 

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