Touareg Stanley – winner of the Grand Challenge for autonomous vehicles. One of the first intelligent vehicles in automotive history, the Touareg Stanley, won the prestigious DARPA (Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) Grand Challenge in California, USA in 2005. A total of 23 vehicles took part in the race for autonomous vehicles through the Nevada desert – only four reached the finish line. The Touareg Stanley completed the 212-kilometre route in six hours, 53 minutes and 58 seconds without human intervention – and was the first to reach the finish line. Stanley was a joint project between Volkswagen and other research centres. Equipped with laser detectors, stereo vision equipment, cameras, GPS and specially developed control software, Stanley navigated precisely through rough terrain. The victory marked a milestone in the development of self-driving vehicles and was the beginning of partly automated assist systems. The third generation of the Touareg production model saw the introduction of Adaptive Cruise Control ACC with predictive cruise control, which – enhanced and now named Travel Assist – is one of the best assist systems for partly automated driving available today.
Current Touareg generation ends with a “FINAL EDITION”
