Question 1

True or false: All self-driving cars use the same type of artificial intelligence to make driving decisions.

Accepted Answer

False. Companies use varied approaches—from deep learning (Waymo) to rule-based systems (Mobileye)—with no single standard AI architecture.

Question 2

True or false: Most self-driving cars today can't navigate safely in heavy snow because sensors get blocked.

Accepted Answer

True. Snow obscures cameras and lidar, and hides lane markings, making it a major challenge for current autonomous systems.

Question 3

True or false: Self-driving cars are immune to hacking because their systems are isolated from the internet.

Accepted Answer

False. Many autonomous vehicles rely on cloud updates and V2X communication, making them vulnerable to cyberattacks if not secured.

Question 4

True or false: The self-driving car VaMoRs, developed in the 1980s, relied on neural networks for its autonomous driving system.

Accepted Answer

False. VaMoRs used computer vision and rule-based algorithms, not neural networks. Neural networks were later used in autonomous vehicles like Carnegie Mellon's ALVINN in the late 1980s.

Question 5

True or false: Self-driving cars always obey speed limits because they’re programmed to follow traffic laws perfectly.

Accepted Answer

False. Some systems may exceed speed limits slightly for safety, like merging onto highways, as rigid rule-following can cause hazards.

Question 6

True or false: Lidar sensors on self-driving cars use laser beams to measure the distance to surrounding objects.

Accepted Answer

True. Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) emits laser pulses and measures the time for reflections to return, creating precise 3D maps of the car's surroundings.

Question 7

True or false: Early self-driving car prototypes used a single central computer the size of a refrigerator trunk.

Accepted Answer

False. Early prototypes like Stanford's Stanley (2005) used a cluster of six computers in the trunk, not a single central computer.

Question 8

True or false: Waymo's self-driving cars have driven over 20 million miles autonomously on public roads.

Accepted Answer

True. By early 2020, Waymo's fleet had logged over 20 million miles of autonomous driving on public roads, a milestone widely reported by the company and media.

Self-Driving Car Trivia Questions