Was a VW Beetle the first self-driving car?
Self-driving cars have always been a dream of engineers, but also of filmmakers. Herbie, the great Beetle, was already driving around all by himself in 1968. However, as a Disney character, the white Beetle was more of a humanized and animated vehicle than an intelligent machine.
But there was another Beetle, Dudu, who appeared in a total of five films between 1971 and 1978. And Dudu, a 1303S in the movie "A Beetle on an Extra Tour", was a computer-controlled car that could even be given orders via a remote control.
However, what looks like a version of the iPhone (in Cloun's hand) in one scene turns out to be a pocket calculator in the next. But Rudolf Zehetgruber was not that far removed from today's reality! In fact, today cars can already transmit commands via cell phone and even the car that parks itself is a reality, even in a large parking garage.
Where back then a whole gym full of computers would have been needed to make the Beetle drive autonomously, today a few cubic centimeters are enough to make the dream a reality. However, many of the things that Dudu was already able to do in the films (e.g. turning all wheels 90 degrees to drive out of a parking space at right angles) are not yet possible even in the self-driving cars of today (and tomorrow). We'll probably have to give them a little more time ...
