First place went to the Carnegie Mellon University Tartan Racing Team and their GM Chevrolet Tahoe, which finished roughly 20 minutes ahead of the second placed Stanford team and their autonomous VW Passat. Only six of the eleven vehicles competing actually finished the challenge, and only four teams finished in the allotted six hours.
The significance of the challenge is the technologies that could one day feature on actual production vehicles. Already we’ve seen active safety systems that automatically apply a vehicle’s brakes or systems that simply warn drivers if an accident is about to occur. It appears the next leap will be cars that require no input from the driver whatsoever.