Hot Wheels' latest die-cast is a Roborace autonomous race car
The autonomous Robocar is now available at 1:64 scale.
We Roadshow editors are really just big kids, and that's why we love Hot Wheels. The 1:64-scale toy cars line our desks, and every time we go shopping, you can bet we're perusing the latest die-cast car offerings in the toy aisle.
Hot Wheels has been going strong for 50 years, and continually looks to the future for what's hot in the automotive space. To that end, the company's newest creation, unveiled Tuesday, is one of the most forward-thinking parts of the motorsports world: Roborace's autonomous race car.
Roborace aims to create a completely driverless racing series by 2021. The project's website calls the series the "world's first competition for human and machine teams, using both self-driving and manually controlled cars.
The first Roborace season will involve human drivers, running cars based on a DevBot prototype. "Unlike the Robocar, the DevBot has a cabin that can be driven by a human or a computer, allowing teams to fully understand how the car thinks and feels on a race track," Roborace says.
The Hot Wheels car, however, is based on the fully self-driving concept, which participated in the Goodwood Festival of Speed hill climb in 2018. The die-cast model is the spitting image of the Robocar -- a rad, futuristic racer, wearing an excellent black-and-yellow livery. We'd love to have one in our collection.
