Xavier and BB8: Nvidia heroes drive ambitious autonomous car plans

The race between two key chip makers to put self-driving cars on the streets is getting heated. And it's no less entertaining, involving the likes of BB8, a self-driving Nvidia car named after a droid in Star Wars, and the company's automotive supercomputer called Xavier, named after an X-men superhero. These two playfully named products are a big part of Nvidia's ambitious plans to put a fleet of self-driving cars on the streets by 2020. Nvidia is collaborating with Audi to develop these autonomous cars, which will be based on the Drive-PX computer. Nvidia's announcement comes just a day after Intel and BMW said they were putting 40 self-driving cars on the street by the end of this year.