这是一天中最轻松的时候。在开车时可以抬起脚休息，夜深了开车时可以睡觉，还可以读报纸，看电影，或赶写电子邮件。在2020开车上班并不象在21世纪早期那样令人头痛地在拥挤的交通中跋涉。你的自动机器人汽车不用你手扶方向盘，你可以做一些更有趣更有意义事，虽然与前面的车紧靠着高速前进会让你最初有些难以适应。
这是塞巴斯蒂安?特龙对未来日常交通的设想，到那时我们都有一个机器人司机替我们开车。特龙教授认为，开车的现实情况与广告所宣称开车所带来的自由有很大差距。
“世界上没有人能说开车是一种乐趣。开车不是娱乐。我们开车是因为我们不得不开车。我们可以从开车中解脱出来获得自由，”他说。
更糟的是，开车的时候司机本身就是一个危险因素。“假如你去参加一个葬礼，死者是因为另一个司机开车时打手机不注意而去世的，这时就很难说我们有随意开车的权利。”因为机器人更精确反应也更快，车和车之间就可以靠得很近。
特龙教授，斯坦福大学人工智能实验室主任，带领一批工程师和电脑专家建造了“少年号”，这是本次美国军方赞助的机器人汽车大赛大奖的夺冠热门。
“达帕尔城市挑战赛”今天是最激烈的时候，参赛者建造的无人驾驶汽车要能在模拟的城市交通中躲避障碍，遵守交通规则并能避开其它替身司机驾驶的车辆。在加利福尼亚维克多维尔的预选赛中，比赛包括在与重车相遇，遇到障碍或遇到停下的车辆后如何找到另一条道路。有十一支参赛队进入了决赛。这次比赛由美国军方国防高级项目处赞助，最快的汽车可以获得两百万美元的奖金。
“城市挑战赛”的前身是“达帕尔大挑战赛”，“达帕尔大挑战赛”是机器人汽车沿132英里的沙漠跑道进行比赛。在2004年第一届举行的时候，有15辆车参加但没有一辆完成比赛。到2005年的时候，有四支队在10小时的比赛时间内完成了比赛。美国国会要求到2015年的时候要有三分之一的地面军用车辆实现无人驾驶。特龙说他不会与军方在进攻型车辆上进行合作，但是会帮助建造一辆伤亡人员救援车辆。
It is the most relaxing time of the day. Put your feet up, sleep off that late night, read the paper, watch a film or catch up on email. The 2020 commute to work is nothing like the brain-pounding trudge through traffic jams of the early 21st century. Your autonomous robot car now lets you take your hands off the wheel and do something more enjoyable and productive instead - although driving bumper to bumper with the car in front at high speed was a little unnerving at first.
This is Sebastian Thrun's vision of the daily commute once we are all in the hands of a robot chauffeur. For Professor Thrun, the reality of driving is a long way from the vision of freedom promoted by car ads.
"No one on Earth can tell me that commuting is fun. It is not recreational driving. It is driving because we have to drive. We could free up that time," he said.
Worse, people are a dangerous liability behind the wheel. "If you go to a funeral of a person who died because another driver picked up a cellphone and didn't pay attention, it is extremely hard to defend our right to drive where we like." And because robots are more accurate and have quicker reaction times, the cars can drive closer together.
Prof Thrun, director of Stanford University's artificial intelligence laboratory, is the leader of a team of engineers and computer scientists who have created Junior, the hot favourite to win a lucrative US military-funded race for autonomous robot cars.
Contestants in the Darpa Urban Challenge, which reaches its climax today, must build driverless cars that can navigate a simulated urban course while avoiding obstacles, obeying the rules of the road and avoiding other vehicles driven by stunt drivers. The qualifying rounds at Victorville, California, have included merging into heavy traffic, finding an alternative route after encountering an obstacle and parking. Eleven teams made it to the final. The race is sponsored by the US military's Defence Advanced Projects Agency and the fastest vehicle wins $2m.
The Urban Challenge is the successor to the Darpa Grand Challenge, a robot car race along a 132-mile desert course. When it was first held in 2004, 15 cars entered and none finished. By 2005 four teams finished in under the 10 hour time limit. The US Congress has pledged to make a third of military ground vehicles unmanned by 2015. Prof Thrun said he would not collaborate on a military attack vehicle, but would help to build one that helped to rescue casualties.