Google's self driving car project was formerly led by Sebastian Thrun , former director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and co-inventor of Google Street View . Thrun's team at Stanford created the robotic vehicle Stanley which won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge and its US$2 million prize from the United States Department of Defense . [6] The team developing the system consisted of 15 engineers working for Google, including Chris Urmson , Mike Montemerlo, and Anthony Levandowski who had worked on the DARPA Grand and Urban Challenges . [7] In October 2010, an attorney for the California Department of Motor Vehicles raised concerns that "[t]he technology is ahead of the law in many areas", citing state laws that "all presume to have a human being operating the vehicle". [6] According to a May 2011 article in The New York Times , policy makers and regulators have argued that new laws will be required if