The penultimate stop in the Touareg Stanley’s international exhibition tour is The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California. The prototype will be on display there from 20 June to 18 July 2008. It was here in the Silicon Valley region near San Francisco that the Stanley project was originally born.
Stanley was the first automobile to master the “Grand Challenge” for robot cars, gaining itself the reputation of a pioneering development project for autonomous vehicles.
The Touareg set out on the 212-kilometer race through the Mojave Desert amidst a field of 22 other competitors on 8 October 2005. Stanley traveled through the desert all on its own – no driver, no external intervention. It was the first to cross the finishing line after six hours, 53 minutes and 58 seconds. Never before had a motor vehicle managed anything close to such a distance completely autonomously.
[Source: Topspeed]
Volkswagen Touareg Stanley on display in Silicon Valley - Top Speed