The concept of self-driving cars too, owes a lot to the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The first DARPA Grand Challenge of 2004 required robotic cars to travel 140 miles across the Mojave Desert. A few years later, Tesla announced it would build a self-driving system into its cars. TESLA has claimed there will be self-driving Tesla “robotaxis” on the road as early as next year. Scepticism and concernsAfter a 2018 incident in which an Uber self-driving car prototype fatally hit a pedestrian in Arizona, carmakers had paused to reflect on safety aspects.

Source: Indian Express May 06, 2019 18:45 UTC