A Half-Century History of Self-Driving Cars: From Japan to Waymo Robotaxi
Original: 自動駕駛的半世紀演進史：從日本實驗車到 Waymo Robotaxi
Self-driving cars are decades of global engineering, not a single Silicon Valley breakthrough.
The article reframes autonomous driving as a long international evolution rather than a Silicon Valley invention. Japan and Germany laid early foundations in the 1970s through experimental vehicle research. DARPA competitions later accelerated the field in the U.S., before Silicon Valley companies commercialized the accumulated work, with Waymo Robotaxi standing as a modern example.
This article, built around the core viewpoint that "self-driving was not invented in Silicon Valley," reorganizes the long-term evolution of autonomous driving technology from experimental research toward commercial service. The article points out that the Waymo Robotaxi familiar to the public today is not a single breakthrough suddenly accomplished by some Silicon Valley company, but is built upon decades of technological accumulation in Japan, Germany, the United States, and elsewhere. As early as the 1970s, Japan and Germany had already begun conducting autonomous-driving-related experiments, exploring how vehicles could accomplish partially automated tasks through sensing, control, and understanding of the road environment. Although these early studies were still far from today's Robotaxi services, they established the technical foundation and problem awareness needed for the industry's subsequent development.
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