San Francisco Man Builds Self-Driving Car: Report

By Daniel Hubbard (Patch Staff)

SAN FRANCISCO-George Hotz is a 26-year-old hacker from San Francisco. He did something that only two companies at the apex of their respective industries, Tesla and Google, are trying to do.

He built a self-driving car. In his garage.

“I saw what they were doing and I’m like ‘I am confident with the research I’ve seen that I can do this,” Hotz told Bloomberg Businessweek. “Then one day I was just like “i’m going to buy a car, we’re going to throw some cameras in it, I’m going to throw some computers in it. We’re going to make this work. Done.”

Hotz, a Glen Rock, New Jersey native, retrofitted a 2016 Acura ILX with a laser-based radar system on the roof, a camera on the rearview mirror, a joystick instead of a gearshift, a computer instead of a glove compartment, and a 21.5-inch screen, the report states.

(Editor’s note: Actually there are three companies now with driverless prototypes ready for public roads, with the addition of Ford this week. See Lookout! More Driverless Cars Coming to California Roads)