Driving a car with genetic algorithm

Here a person is trying to create a car that will successfully drive around a track, he starts with 100's of cars I think. If you look at the diagram below, each car might be fitted with an algorithm to check for distance between obstructions in various directions. So how does this very simple equations make the car drive around the track? First there is lot of randomness, if you watch the video the person creates lots of cars, with lots of values of \(\alpha_i\) and \(\beta_i\). So some cars are little better than others.