Glen Rock Native Builds Self-Driving Car: Report

George Hotz is a 26-year-old hacker from San Francisco. He did something that only two companies at the apex of their respective industries, Tesla and Google, are trying to do.

He built a self-driving car. In his garage.

“I saw what they were doing and I’m like ‘I am confident with the research I’ve seen that I can do this,” Hotz told Bloomberg Businessweek. “Then one day I was just like “i’m going to buy a car, we’re going to throw some cameras in it, I’m going to throw some computers in it. We’re going to make this work. Done.”

Hotz, a Glen Rock native, retrofitted a 2016 Acura ILX with a laser-based radar system on the roof, a camera on the rearview mirror, a joystick instead of a gearshift, a computer instead of a glove compartment, and a 21.5-inch screen, the report states.

Hotz came onto the scene as a 17-year-old hacker. In 2007, he was the first to hack the iPhone and three years later he hacked the PlayStation 3.

He met with Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive officer, and nearly went to work for Telsa but he broke off the talks, according to the report.

Hotz is now dedicated to the research and development of artificial intelligence — AI. He downloaded manuals and schematics for his Acura after turning his garage into an authorized Honda service center, Bloomberg reported. He has taken the car out on test rides, each one more promising and safe than the last, and wants to have a “world-class autonomous vehicle working “in five months.”

(Pictured: George Hotz/Via Wikimedia Commons)