The first cars bold enough to drive themselves

"No one knows exactly when the vehicles we drive will finally wrest the steering wheel from us. But the age of the autonomous automobile isn't some sudden Big Bang. It's more of a slow crawl, one that started during the Roosevelt administration. And that's Theodore, not Franklin. And not in America, but in Spain, by someone you've probably never heard of. His name was Leonardo Torres Quevedo, a Spanish engineer born in Santa Cruz, Spain, in 1852."

"It was called the Telekino, a name drawn from the Greek "tele," meaning at a distance, and "kino," meaning movement. Patented in Spain, France, and the United States, it was conceived as a way to prevent airship accidents. The Telekino transmitted wireless signals to a small receiver known as a coherer, which detected electromagnetic waves and transformed them into an electrical current."

Leonardo Torres Quevedo invented the Telekino, a wireless remote-control system patented in Spain, France, and the United States. The Telekino used a coherer to detect electromagnetic waves, convert them into electrical current, and amplify signals to operate electromagnets and switches that controlled servomotors. Quevedo could issue 19 distinct commands and in 1904 directed a small three-wheeled vehicle from nearly 100 feet away, the earliest recorded radio-controlled vehicle. He later demonstrated the system on boats and torpedoes. Lack of funding and institutional caution, notably from the Spanish Crown, prevented commercial development. Quevedo continued innovating, producing a mechanical chess machine in 1914.

Read at Ars Technica