What If Cars Could Drive Themselves?

Steven E. Shladover

Even when cars were still young, futurists began thinking about vehicles that could drive themselves, without human help. Perhaps the best known of these conjectures was the General Motors Futurama, the hit of the 1939 New York World’s Fair. During the following decades interest in automated vehicles rose and fell several times. Now, at the start of the new century, it’s worth taking a fresh look at this concept and asking how automation might change transportation and the quality of our lives.

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