OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra is the only AI model to finish a real-world driving test in a Toyota Corolla

Three engineers gave the keys of a real car to some of the most advanced AI chatbots on the market. Only one of them made it to the finish line. OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra completed a 134.7-meter cone course in a 2022 Toyota Corolla, finishing in 5 minutes 22 seconds on its second try. Rival models from Anthropic, xAI, and even OpenAI itself failed to complete a single run. The experiment, called DrivingBench, is a public benchmark built to answer a simple question. Can a general-purpose large language model actually operate a physical vehicle? The answer, for now, is “barely, and with supervision.” How the AI driving test worked DrivingBench was run by Aditya Ramabadran, Tobias Gessler, and Simon Mahns, three engineers from Axiom Math. The tests took place between September 21 and 24, 2026. The test vehicle was a 2022 Toyota Corolla fitted with Comma.ai’s open-source openpilot hardware. That kit gave the engineers a way to translate software commands into steering, braking, and acceleration. The models never touched a steering wheel in any literal sense. They received camera frames and sent back commands through agent harnesses, software layers designed to let a language model control t...