It may be a first of this kind of cross-country road trip.
Three people will be riding in this modified Audi, but for the majority of the time, no one will actually be driving.
It is the longest coast to coast journey of an automated car.
From San Francisco to New York.
This car will make the 3500 mile trip using Delphi's self-driving technology, which includes roughly 20 sensing systems.
Around the periphery there is forward vision.
There's radar, there's also lidar.
The car has high-accuracy GPS, and then also vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications.
Delphi's putting its autonomous driving system to this long-distance test to collect more data about highways.
From on-ramp to off-ramp, the technology will control the car, with an operator behind the wheel in case of emergency.
So we're using radar, and vision systems.
And those rely on the infrastructure, as well as other vehicles around them, for the car to make decisions.
But they won't be hands free 100% of the time.
In urban environments, operators will take over, and drive.
Only five places in the United States, including California, Washington, DC, and Nevada have specific regulations for autonomous driving.
For the rest of the states they're driving through
We just have to follow the laws of those states.
So, in some cases, we'll have to keep a hand on the wheel.
Or just abide by the local law in those areas.
Other companies have performed similar stunts.
Audi's self-driving car made the trek from Silicon Valley to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show in January.
Delpih hopes, the road ahead includes auto makers putting its technology into future cars.
In Mountain View, I'm Kara Tsuboi, CNET.com for CBS News.
