Driven: The Race to Create the Autonomous Car

While the idea of self-driving cars is almost as old as the automobile itself, they didn’t become practicable until the arrival of technology capable of replicating a human driver’s senses, writes Davies, a Wired editor, in this deeply researched account. In the early 2000s, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency initiated the DARPA Grand Challenge race for autonomous vehicles, offering a million-dollar prize for the winning design team. While that first race, held in 2004, was a fiasco—not a single car made it to the finish line—a 2005 race delivered a clear winner in “Stanley,” an autonomous SUV funded by Volkswagen. Subsequent races grew in public profile as well as complexity as human stunt drivers began participating in order to test how the autonomous vehicles fared alongside non-AIs. Davies narrows his focus to Google and Uber’s dueling bids for control of this market, culminating in a courtroom battle over corporate espionage. The book starts a bit slowly as Davies sets the stage, but like its subject, it gains speed and momentum as it gets going. The result is a skillfully chronicled work on a timely topic. Agent: Eric Lupfer, Fletcher & Co. (Jan.)