Don't Look Now, But Even Buses Are Going Autonomous

Reno, Nevada, may not seem like the place to develop the country's first self-driving public bus, but Richard Kelley thinks it presents all the right challenges. The buildings are taller than those in the office parks of the Silicon Valley, providing a good visual test for the complex algorithms. The weather is more taxing, arid with occasional snowfall. "You have people who are just walking out of the casino," says Kelley, the chief engineer at the University of Nevada at Reno's Advanced Autonomous Systems Innovation Center. If you're teaching a 14-ton machine to navigate urban chaos by itself, Reno's not a bad schoolyard.