A driverless Maserati MC20 supercar has shattered the world speed record for autonomous vehicles, reaching 197.7 mph during a high-speed run at NASA’s former space shuttle runway at Kennedy Space Center.
The sleek Italian machine, equipped with a 630-horsepower twin-turbocharged V6 engine and guided entirely by artificial intelligence, achieved the feat on March 3 at the Space Florida-managed Launch and Landing Facility — a 15,000-foot-long, ultra-flat strip originally designed for shuttle landings.
The achievement marks a significant leap forward in autonomous vehicle development. The MC20 was developed by the Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC) with autonomous software provided by teams from Politecnico di Milano and Michigan State University. The car utilized GPS, LIDAR, and an onboard robotic control system to navigate the straight-line sprint without human intervention.
“This test demonstrated not only the power of the MC20 platform but also the precision of our AI driver,” said Paul Mitchell, CEO of the IAC. “We’re not just building race cars — we’re training future engineers and testing real-world autonomous safety systems that could eventually benefit highway drivers.”
The previous autonomous vehicle record, also held by the IAC, was set in 2022 when a Dallara AV-21 reached 192.8 mph on the same runway.
The venue’s vast width and exceptional flatness — with less than 1% grade variance — make it ideal for such experiments. Used in the past by Tesla, SpaceX, and the Florida Highway Patrol, the site has become a hub for advanced vehicle testing since NASA handed over control to Space Florida in 2015.
Maserati’s participation signals growing automotive interest in pushing AI driving limits. Chief engineer Davide Danesin noted the data collected during the record-breaking run could aid future development of emergency-handling software for consumer vehicles.
As autonomous technology edges closer to mainstream adoption, high-speed benchmarks like this one underscore how far — and how fast — the self-driving future is accelerating.
Shawn Henry