Stanford's entry in the DARPA Grand Challenge, the competition for self-driving vehicles, is this tricked-out VW Passat. Stanford's team is worth watching as their robo-Toureg from the last challenge came out the winner.

This year's challenge is in an urban environment, and it has driverless cars navigating their way through streets and intersections with traffic. Things seem to be progressing along swimmingly for the Passat lovingly named Junior, as he managed to pass a bunch of preliminary tests yesterday that involved making his way through a busy intersection and then around a parked car. I look forward to the day when robocars can chauffeur me around, which I assume is the goal of this contest. –Adam Frucci

Driver Not Included in This Performance Test [NY Times]

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