How a robot lover pioneered the driverless car, and why he's selling his latest to Uber

Anthony Levandowski is one the most influential engineers behind self-driving vehicles. Now that Uber has bought his latest startup Otto, he talks about how it all started

Self-driving vehicles have been developed in many places, over many years, but few people have as strong a claim as Anthony Levandowski to being considered their inventor. And it all started with a phone call from his mother.

"My mom called me up and said, there's this robot race it would be interesting for you to find out about," he recalls. That race was the 2004 Grand Challenge, the first of three long distance contests for driverless cars organised by the Pentagon's research arm, Darpa. "I was like wow, this is absolutely the future."