British-headquartered automotive firm Delphi has initiated the longest driverless car test drive ever carried out in North America.

The coast-to-coast trip from Mountainview California to New York will cover 3,500 miles in total.

An engineer will be in the driving seat in case a manual takeover is necessary, but in theory the car will drive itself all the way to the eastern seaboard.

Delphi Automotive PLC have used an Audi SUV kitted out with a variety of sensors. As well as navigating four-way stops, the car is able to merge into motorway traffic and manoeuvre around cyclists – according to the firm.

Instead of a human driver, the car relies on cameras, lasers and 22 sensors to give it a complete 3D, 360 degree impression of the local environment.

The trip began on Sunday 22nd March from San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.

An ABC news item featured a reporter in the passenger seat of the Audi as it drove around Mountainview, California, with an engineer in the driver’s seat.

The engineer had to take over control from the autonomous system at one stage – when unexpected roadworks meant they had to change lanes.

Given that trip lasted for 8 minutes, the engineer may encounter several more such issues on the 3,500 mile test drive.

One might wonder if it was purely coincidental that the choice of location for the ABC news report was Mountainview, where Google are headquartered – just a short distance from Apple's HQ. The two tech giants are both developing their own autonomous cars and Delphi may be keen to show off their success so far.