Before 2029, will any car drive itself, completely unassisted, from a city on the east coast of the USA to the west?

Question

The entire drive must be done autonomously, under its own propulsion, with no human input. Humans can help with any parts other than driving and navigation, such as fueling/charging the car and performing repairs. The original route can be chosen by a human, but after that, any updates to the route due to road closures, heavy traffic, running out of gas and needing to go to a gas station, etc. must be decided on by the car.

The car must not break any traffic laws that could reasonably get a human driver in trouble. (e.g. if it sees an object in the road and chooses to swerve into an empty opposite-direction lane in order to avoid the object, that's fine.) It also must not engage in any behavior that is legal but still highly unsafe, such as running into a pedestrian who's in the road illegally without a crosswalk. Other road-related laws that don't have to do with driving capability, such as an expired registration or a law against self-driving cars, won't disqualify the run.

If's fine if there's a human physically inside the car, they just can't provide any control inputs. If a human driver has to take over even once, such as to avoid an unexpected dangerous situation or help the car navigate through a complicated construction area, that disqualifies the trip.

Remote human driving, such as a human in an office looking at sensor feeds and driving the car from there, does not count as "self-driving".

In order for the route to qualify, it must start and end in some urban area, complete with the traditional challenges to self-driving cars that such an area provides. (The goal is to show that the car is capable of handling any type of situation a human driver could, not just highway driving.)

Manifold Markets · Answer

Very likely — Manifold Markets prediction market estimates a 82% chance (56 traders, as of Aug 2, 2026).