For the longest time, self-driving cars seemed like a dream of the future. Today, this dream is becoming a reality with the arrival on the market of new autonomous cars. These origins go back many years. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get the original essay The search for a self-driving car began as early as 1925. Francis Houdina was the first person to create a radio-controlled self-driving car that “can start the engine, shift gears and honk the horn” (Dormehl). With the limited technology of the time, he was able to realize his vision. The car was able to drive on "Broadway in New York... dragged by a driver in another vehicle..." (Engelking). Houdina's invention was very impressive and scientifically advanced for its time. The next major milestone for self-driving cars would occur in 1968. John McCarthy, "one of the founding fathers of artificial intelligence" (Dormehl), wrote an essay about it "for other researchers to work on" (Dormehl). His research suggested building a car with “a computer…equipped with a television camera input that uses the same visual input available to the human driver” (McCarthy). His test showed that there were problems to resolve to move forward with the creation of the car. They needed to find the right computer quickly enough to do the job, and they needed the car to be safe enough. He was not sure whether the technology used was reliable enough; it would require more research and development. The car was never built. The next big step came in the early 1990s with the help of Dean Pomerleau. A student at Carnegie Mellon University, Pomerleau wrote his doctoral thesis on how “neural networks could enable an autonomous vehicle to capture raw images of the road and produce steering commands in real time” ( Dormehl). Neural networks are systems aimed at imitating the way humans act (Dormehl). This new research has proven to be much more effective than previous ones, making it an important step in the self-driving car journey. In 1995, Pomerleau and researcher Todd Jochem took their car from Pennsylvania to California, as part of a challenge called "No Hands Across America." They managed to get the car to drive them to California. In doing so, they “knew the limits of the system [and knew] that there were certain risks” (Pomerleau). At the time, completing this project “would be the greatest test of the system yet” (Baker). Although there were successful trials of self-driving cars, the technology was not ready for commercialization anytime soon. Along the way, automakers have gradually added new features to everyday cars. In the 2000s, “automatic parking systems began to emerge, demonstrating that sensors and autonomous road technologies are close to being ready for real-world scenarios.” (Dormehl). In 2003, the Toyota Prius was the first car to introduce automatic parking technology. This provided a first glimpse of what the near future of automotive technology might hold. It was in 2009 that the creation of autonomous cars finally became a reality, with the help of Google which launched its project on autonomous cars, under the name Waymo. This was a very important milestone because “in 18 months they had built a system that could handle some of the toughest roads in California” (Davies). A few.