This 15-foot-tall exoskeleton was made for racing

Mech racing is a sport straight out of a science fiction novel.

To compete, humans pilot off-road running machines in a high-speed race, using electric-powered exoskeletons. Furrion’s Prosthesis, an exo-bionic racing mech, is the prime example of one of these machines.

Prosthesis made its debut at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in 2018. It’s hard to believe a human is inside the 8,000-pound, 15-foot tall and 18-foot-wide steel skeleton.

It moves 20 miles per hour and can run for as long as an hour on a single battery charge. Watching two of these compete is like watching “Mad Max.”

What makes racing these machines innovative is that these aren’t automated nor do they require human pilots to work. Without autonomy and gyro-stabilization, these exoskeletons rely on the wits of their human operators.

During CES, the company also announced the launch of the X1 Mech Racing League, a new outlet for the sport.

“The X1 Mech Racing League will be unlike anything anyone has ever seen before,” co-founder Matt Fidler said in a press release. “We feel this is a sport whose time has come. People have been dreaming of large-scale, high-performance exo-bionic machines for decades and we’re excited to be at the forefront. The interest in mech racing is huge and, of course, it won’t happen overnight, but we are excited about working with new partners to make it a reality.”

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