This Notorious Hacker Built A Self-Driving Car In His Garage

The first guy to ever hack an iPhone has now set his sights on building an affordable autonomous car package. He's fitted his first working prototype to an Acura, and it works flawlessly on the highway

Darren Cassey

17 Dec 2015

Meet George Hotz, the hacker who became an online sensation at the age of 17 when he became the first person to hack an iPhone. He’s made a name for himself finding security flaws in a wide variety of equipment, but now he’s set his sights on building the first affordable autonomous car system.

He’s retrofitted an Acura ILX with a fully working kit, which he built at his home and fitted in his garage. The vehicle currently has an expensive Lidar system similar to the kind used by most autonomous vehicles, which uses lasers to read the road ahead, however Hotz reckons he can replace that with six small cameras costing £13 each.

All in, he believes he can sell the system for $1000 per installation, whether that’s to manufacturers wanting to implement the technology from the showroom, or to individual customers wanting to retrofit the technology to their own cars.

You can read the full post about Hotz and his impressive setup here.

Comments

I love cars and I am in no rush to see the time when government mandates all cars be autonomous. However I am excited by Hotz approach to making an autonomous car. I am an IT professional and I took an AI class back in college where we created something similar and I have to say it worked quite well and went off more or less the same logic. This method not only has the computer learn from the hard coded rules but learn from what it sees. It can also over time correct mistakes it has learned or been told. This would make the program constantly learn how to be a better driver. This should also be relatively cheap to implement as stated and would not be hard to use for multiple car brands/models. The reason this makes me excited it to get those drivers that hardly pay attention out of all our those who car to drives way. We wouldn’t have to worry if they see the car in front of them stopping while texting. It would put my mind more at ease so I can more enjoy driving in the general public. I would also be excited to use the technology myself for long drives which I feel tired, even if it just gives me a little time to relax and rest my mind. As car people we should be excited this is going to happen just make sure it happens in the right way and doesn’t push those who enjoy driving and take it seriously to the curb too quickly.

One day we will have to work 1 more hour because we will be able to sleep in our cars.

didnt bmw already do this in 2010/11?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsnKzK6dX8Q

lol, how do I stop it!
Big Red Button HMM…..

This is awesome it’s like I.ROBOT & Demolition man. This gunna be interesting how they go about it … as long as it’s not like johnny-cab from total recall I’m good .. get tired hop in the back seat and listen to some beats . Until you tell or chip your car to be more aggressive on the road. ..

1000 bucks?? Like one thousand? I’m not a big fan but i gotta say…. TESLA and GOOGLE, hurt much? This dude is 26 and working in a garage with a bunch of CHINESE 13 dollar cameras, don’t matter if we car guys don’t like it just gotta admire the genius of the guy and laugh on the face of those dollar suckers in the car industry that change you 100 times more just so you can have your car back in the dealership with some sort of dead sensor and no car for 3 months…. Oh the irony