Gear

Autonomous Cars Through the Ages

Google's self-driving Prius hybrids trace their lineage to an idea that captured the public's imagination in 1939. A look back at autonomous cars through the ages.
  • GM Futurama World's Fair 1939
  • Stanford Cart autonomous vehicle
  • VaMP autonomous car
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gm-futurama-worlds-fair-1939
<style type="text/css"> <p>.autonomous_left_rail { width:200px; border-bottom: 5px solid #333; border-top: 5px solid #333; font-size: 1.2em; }

content .autonomous_left_rail p {

margin:0px; font-size:12px; } .autonomous_coming_soon { color:#999; } .gallery_title { font-weight:bold; padding-top:5px; padding-bottom:10px; font-size: 1.2em; } </style></head><body> Let the Robot Drive: The Autonomous Car of the Future Is Here Navigating the Legality of Autonomous Vehicles [Mapping the Road Ahead for Autonomous Cars](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/autopia/2012/02/autonomous-vehicles-q-and-a/?utm_source=wired.com&utm_medium=sidebar&utm_campaign=historytoqandaclicks ) Five Reasons The Robo-Car Haters Are Wrong Humans have since the days of Leonardo da Vinci’s supposed robotic cart dreamed of true automobiles: Self-driving cars. As microprocessors and sensing technologies have grown smaller, cheaper and more powerful, and with cars bristling with sophisticated electronic control systems, that day is upon us. Google's self-driving Toyota Prius hybrids already are racking up more miles than the typical California driver. Here is a capsule history of key developments on the road to autonomous vehicles.

Glimpsing the Future

The idea of autonomous vehicles gained widespread public exposure at GM's Futurama exhibit at the 1939 World’s Fair, where the automaker envisioned "abundant sunshine, fresh air [and] fine green parkways" upon which cars would drive themselves. "By 1953," historian Jameson Wetmore wrote in Driving the Dream, "GM and RCA had developed a scale model automated highway system, which allowed them to begin experimenting with how electronics could be used to steer and maintain proper following distance." In 1958, Wetmore notes, the company tested a 1958 Chevrolet with a front-end featuring "pick-up coils" that could "sense the alternating current of a wire embedded in the road and would adjust the steering wheel accordingly." As GM described it, "The car rolled along the two-lane check road and negotiated the banked turn-around loops at either end without the driver’s hands on the steering wheel." Photo: General Motors