The Department of Defense's research arm, the Defense Advance Research Project Agency (DARPA), has announced their latest challenge: build a robotic car that can traverse through urban settings for 60 miles in 6 hours. The challenge is designed to encourage research for the development of autonomous ground vehicles for use on the battlefield.

In the 2005 challenge, several cars successfully drove autonomously 175 miles through the Mojave desert. This year, the challenge is to drive through city environments, including understanding street signals, and merging into traffic safely.

This picture shows last year's winner, Stanford University's VW Toureg vehicle, named "Stanley".

Last year, chemists were able to build a car from a single-molecule. Now, chemists at Rice University have built the first motorized version of their nanocar.

The nanocar is powered by light. Its motor is a molecular framework that was developed by Ben L. Feringa and was modified so that it would attach in-line with the nanocar's chassis. When light strikes the motor, it rotates in one direction, pushing the car along like a paddlewheel.

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Pictures of cars being assembled on an assembly line in Volkswagon's Dresden factory.

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