The Google Self-driving car is one of those technologies that everyone knows will have a major impact on society but no one knows quite the when or how or, importantly, who. According to Elon Musk, he'd like Tesla Motors to be the "who."

If you're here reading Jalopnik, you probably enjoy the act of driving more than just about anything else. But could our days behind the wheel really be numbered?

In the future computers will rise up and enslave the human race. We all know this.

Google got approval to run its driverless cars within Nevada last year, but now the state has allowed Audi to run its driverless cars on the streets as well. This marks the first time an established carmaker has been given the authority to test its driverless cars on public roads.

Skynet has become self aware. Well, not quite, but Stanford's autonomous Audi TTS, Shelley, gave several human drivers a run for their money at California's Thunderhill Raceway.

Now that Mitt Romney has picked his Weinermobile-driving running mate, election season is in full swing.

The automobile itself is a technology, and an amazingly advanced one at that. But what automobile is the most advanced of all?

Google won a U.S. patent for its autonomous-vehicle system, paving the way for us dumb meat pods to be eliminated from the driving process. The patent applies to how the system switches from person control to machine control using "smart" parking spaces.

We're wary of self-driving cars in general, and Google's driverless car technology is anything but proven, but we do have to admit that seeing Google's behind-the-scenes process is extremely cool. Join us as we cautiously examine how Google's trying to make self-driving cars work.

American drivers, like cigarettes, are immoral — waiting to kill us like cancer, and should be replaced by cars that drive themselves. So says Netscape co-founder and self-styled techno-futurist Mark Andreessen.