Cars that drive themselves used to be a pipe dream, only to
be seen in the movies. But with cars already packed with information
technology, the idea is no longer far-fetched for global automakers, and the
competition is heating up.
U.S. companies are leading the way. Last year, Google Inc.
posted a video on YouTube showing a car traveling on its own while its “driver”
eats a hamburger, with his hands completely off the steering wheel. The clip,
covering a slice of the firm’s 320,000 km of computer-led driving tests on
public roads, has been viewed almost 5 million times.