The Formula E electric motor racing series is adding a robotic opening act: autonomous cars will race just before the human-driven race begins. The races, scheduled for the 2016-2017 season, will comprise a parallel championship called ROBORACE.

The robo-cars won’t have the same specifications as the human-driven ones. Free from the burden of meat and safety hardware, the robot cars could have an hours’ endurance, organizers say, which is about double that of last year’s human-driven Formula E cars.

Read the rest of this blog post on IEEE Spectrum’s Cars That Think blog: [html].