Arthur C. Clarke wrote that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” For non-experts, that certainly seems to be the case for self-driving cars. But as in the case of magic tricks, we can begin to understand how self-driving cars work by breaking them down into component pieces and examining them individually. If you want to know some of what goes into making self-driving work, you can check out my article, The Magic Behind Self-Driving Cars, which begins on page 10 of Vol. 11, #4 of Thinking Highways magazine.