Pentagon to beat Uber, Tesla in race over self-driving vehicles

The dashboard of the Tesla Model S P90D. The Pentagon is going to introduce self-driving cars to the military. (Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

WASHINGTON: Forget Uber, Waymo and Tesla: The next big name in self-driving vehicles could be the Pentagon. 

“We're going to have self-driving vehicles in theatre for the Army before we'll have self-driving cars on the streets,” Michael Griffin, the undersecretary of defence for research and engineering, told lawmakers at a hearing on Capitol Hill last month. “But the core technologies will be the same.”