The 100-Year History of Self-Driving Cars

What the long history of the autonomous vehicle reveals about its fast-approaching future

Vintage illustration of a family of four playing a board game, while their futuristic electric car automatically drives itself, 1957. Image: GraphicaArtis/Getty Images

The first self-driving vehicles were ships. After centuries of wrestling with wind and waves, ancient sailors devised contraptions that harnessed these forces of nature to fill in for man. They were simple but ingenious solutions, like the…