In the race to put autonomous vehicles on read roads, technology companies may overtake automakers. According to a report from IHS Automotive, companies like Google and others are currently working toward solutions in the autonomous vehicle space and Google is in the lead. IHS Automotive estimates the technology company has invested nearly $60m so far in autonomous vehicle research and development, at a run rate of nearly $30m per year.

Autonomous vehicles are successful here and now, but you are unlikely to meet one because the successes are in the upper atmosphere, open cast mines, nuclear power stations, underwater and in other relatively inaccessible places - not in driverless deliveries of packages to your door, as some have predicted. Not yet.