>It's Google. They have the right people, the right ideas, the resources, and they started first.

I believe we covered the "fawning from fanboys" part already.

>Source: I'm a prof in a related field with graduated PhD students at Google.

That's not a "source". That's at best a "full discosure" and at worst a "conflict of interest" in this discussion...

Sebastian Thrun's team was the first winner of DARPA driverless vehicles (2nd year) challenge, the year before that contestants failed very early. Do you know car manufacturers with such know-how ? They probably had research about it but I doubt they were as complete. Since Google backed the project they did very extensive tests in the real world. GM and such are bringing back computer aided driving but I'm sure they're too busy sustaining their business to put resources in something as disruptive and risky.

That's what I get for providing a professional opinion on HN? Wow.

For the record, none of my former students work on the Google cars as far as I know.

Google didn't start first at all. Maybe they have the right people but as far as resources, other car companies have them too. That's their bread and butter, not some experiment

By the way: " Mercedes missed a barn-door sized opportunity last week when it revealed technical details of next year's 2014 S-class, which showed that while this flagship model could potentially have been the world's first autonomous driving car, Mercedes has decided not to give it that capability. For now, the driver's hands have to remain on the wheel at all times.

"The car would do it [autonomous driving] today," said Jochen Haab technical support manager, "we have had test cars doing that, but what happens if a child steps out into the street and the radar misses it?" http://www.roadandtrack.com/go/first-looks/new-car-tech-2014...