Xiaomi returned to the Nürburgring to set another lap record, but this time it did it with nobody in the car at all, setting down the first official autonomous time at the world-famous racetrack. Nürburgring is one of the world’s most famous racetracks, and one of the most difficult ones. The track is over 12 miles long through the German countryside and includes high and low speed turns, varied road surfaces and lots of bumps and hills. As such, it’s often used for vehicle benchmarking – and for bragging rights. Over the years we’ve seen a lot of back and forth from various EV manufacturers trying to go the quickest around this track. NIO, Porsche, Tesla and others have gotten in on the record race over the years. But Xiaomi has been one of the strongest competitors lately. Advertisement - scroll for more content When Xiaomi first launched the high-performance version of its SU7 Ultra sport sedan, it took the car around Nürburgring and set a record as the fastest four-door car ever, gas or electric – albeit with a stripped-down prototype version of the car (it’s since improved on that record, beating everything but 3 custom-built racecars). It later came back with the mass-produced, non-stripped version and won a production EV record instead, which has since been beaten. Then it brought its YU7 GT and set the overall SUV record, beating everything, gas or electric, with a time of 7:22.755 But it looks like Xiaomi wasn’t satisfied and wanted to go back for another bite of the apple, as it just announced another record in the YU7 GT: the first officially-timed fastest autonomous lap of the track, with a time of 10:29.483, set on June 8th. Now, if you’ll notice, that’s quite far off of the human-driven record. A full three minutes behind is a huge gap, even on such a long track. Races can be decided by seconds, and a 10-and-a-half minute time would be representative of a much slower vehicle (for example, a Mercedes racecar from 1939 and a Ford Transit van have both beaten that time). But… it’s still something, and you’ve got to start somewhere. (Xiaomi acknowledged this, calling the lap a starting point, not an end point) Nürburgring and Xiaomi released video of the lap, which you can watch in full below, complete with in-car camera showing nobody at the wheel: As you can see in the video, it’s going along at a nice enough pace… but it’s not really challenging the tires or apexes all that much. It does get up to 130mph (210km/h) on the back straight though, which isn’t too bad. We don’t know exactly what autonomous system the YU7 GT was using, as its normal system is built for public roads, but isn’t intended to get up to 130mph or take turns like it did in the video above. So there must have been some custom software built in. While this is the first official autonomous lap of Nürburgring, it’s not the first attempt at autonomous racing. Ten whole years ago, Formula E announced a support series called “Roborace” which intended to have teams compete against one another with autonomous racecars. Roborace mostly ended up being a number of showcase events, rather than real races. The first event ended up in a crash, and later the series hosted a couple man vs. machine matchups, in which the Robo-car was quite a bit slower than the human-driven one, but at one point Roborace said it managed to lap within 8% of a representative laptime from a human driver, quite a bit closer than the YU7 GT’s comparable time. Roborace did finally manage to organize a full race season, though it was a series of time trials, rather than wheel-to-wheel racing (and yet, still fraught with issues). Other autonomous racing series exist and mostly consist of student teams, like the Indy Autonomous Challenge and Formula Student Driverless. They tend to focus less on raw laptime and more on challenges like successfully passing a vehicle traveling at constant speed. Charge your electric vehicle at home using rooftop solar panels. Find a reliable and competitively priced solar installer near you on EnergySage, for free. They have pre-vetted installers competing for your business, ensuring high-quality solutions and 20-30% savings. It’s free, with no sales calls until you choose an installer. Compare personalized solar quotes online and receive guidance from unbiased Energy Advisers. Get started here. – ad* Stay up to date with the latest content by subscribing to Electrek on Google News. You’re reading Electrek— experts who break news about Tesla, electric vehicles, and green energy, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow Electrek on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our YouTube channel for the latest reviews.