The first serious attempt to implement self-driving cars began in the 1980s in Europe and the USA. Since the mid 2000s, progress has rapidly accelerated. The following is a timeline of some AV research historic points and milestones:
- The first major effort in the area was the Eureka Prometheus Project (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Prometheus_Project), which lasted from 1987 to 1995. It culminated in 1995, when an autonomous Mercedes-Benz S-Class took a 1,600 km trip from Munich to Copenhagen and back using computer vision. At some points, the car achieved speeds of up to 175 km/h on the German Autobahn (fun fact: some sections of the Autobahn don't have speed restrictions). The car was able to overtake other cars on its own. The average distance between human interventions was 9 km, and at one point it drove 158 km without interventions...
