Technicans examine data following the trial of an autonomous self-driving vehicle in a pedestrianised zone in Milton Keynes, north of London. There has been much fevered talk about the imminence of self driving cars, leaving the impression with the public that it won't be very long before the automobiles we buy don't even have steering wheels or pedals. This has been fuelled by the car manufacturers themselves as they swap overblown rhetoric about the progress being made thanks to their engineer's ingenuity and the massive sums committed to these projects. Britain's BMI Research hosted a seminar recently where it tried to get the hype and bluster and provide some insight into the prospects of computerised/robot/autonomous vehicles. Perhaps job one should be to decide which of these terms makes the most sense.