From sci-fi to roadworthy, but how soon will they arrive?

Back in 2002, movie director Steven Spielberg and automaker Lexus worked together to create a vehicle that predicted what cars might be like in the year 2054. That car, the Lexus CS 2054, was "driven" in Minority Report by actor Tom Cruise; driven in quote marks because the car actually drove itself. But while such vehicles weren't expected until the middle of this century, a research project undertaken by Leasing Options, a British vehicle-leasing company, says that Lexus CS 2054-like cars will be on the road by 2027. "Who would have thought that 2027, just eight short years away, could be the year we see the Lexus 2054 from Minority Report become commercially available," the company said in its news release last month. "That's a whole 27 years earlier than Spielberg had predicted, seeing as the film was set in 2054."