History Main / AutomatedAutomobiles

* ''The Car'' (1977) is about a car that goes on a killing spree. Presumably [[spoiler:being possessed by a demon rather than just driven by one]] brings it within this trope.

* In the sci-fi novel by Peter F. Hamilton ''The Neutronium Alchemist'' the intelligence agents pursuing Dr Alkad Mzu have to switch to manual driving when the electronic-warfare abilities of the possessed glitch their vehicles.

* Herbie goes exactly where it wants to, sometimes with helpless passengers trapped inside.

* In ''SchlockMercenary'', automated automobiles are the norm, and AIs are easily advanced enough to drive them. In fact, manual driving under the influence is a crime punishable by death.

* The titular ''Wonder-Bug'' (a magical dune buggy) from the ''KroftSuperShow''.

* At the ''Sci Fi Drive In'' in DisneyWorld, the film being shown shows some toy cars being automatically driven at the RCA Research Labs in Princeton, NJ in the 50s (where I spent some very happy years working).

* {{Hanna-Barbera}} gave us ''{{Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch}}''.

* In the ''InspectorGadget'' [[TheMovie movie]], the Gadgetmobile became an automated TalkingCar.

* [[TheLoveBug Herbie]] goes exactly where it wants to, sometimes with helpless passengers trapped inside.

* The automated 18-wheelers in ''SolarCrisis''. They put a motorcycle on the road to try to stop one and the truck just runs right over it, but when one of them stands out in the path of the next one that comes along, this truck does stop. The truck has a fail-safe to prevent it from running over people.

*** It's actually called ''Revenge Road''. And it has the best InsertSong [[CrowningMusicOfAwesome in the show]], ''Akuma to Tenchi no KISS''.

* There's an anime called ''[=~Ex-Driver~=]'', where ''everyone'' uses automated cars - unfortunately the AI in them occasionally [[AIIsACrapshoot goes nuts and the car goes out of control]], at which point it's up to a squad of people with the instinctive ability to drive manual-control cars (called eX-Drivers) to chase them down and bring them to a halt with their driving skills and some fancy battools (specifically, a gadget that freezes up the target's onboard GPS, and revolvers that fire some sticky-cement substance for blacking out the machine's sensors). It is very, very cool. And theme songs by JAMProject!

* In the [[AdaptationDecay decayed]] ''InspectorGadget'' [[TheMovie movie]], the Gadgetmobile became an automated TalkingCar.

** Parodied in "Homer Loves Flanders": Homer accepts going to a big football game with Flanders. While they a driving trough the stadium parking lot, Homer spots Lenny and Carl and makes Flanders duck so they won't see him with Homer despite Flanders being the one ''actually driving the car''. Thus Lenny and Carl see Homer waving at them from the passenger seat of a driverless car...

* The ''[[strike:[[InNameOnly Hardwired]]]] IRobot'' movie has Spooner taking a snooze while his automated Audi drives itself.

* On TopGear, Jeremy supervises an fully automated BMW 330i after it has "learned" the test track, noting that if you really want to terrify yourself, the automation system can be fitted on an M3.
* One episode of NCIS involved an autonomous vehicle which had additionally been programed to kill a human occupant.

* Automatically driven [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_train_operation trains]] are becoming quite common.

* There's also an anime called ''[=~Ex-Driver~=]'', where ''everyone'' uses automated cars - unfortunately the AI in them occasionally [[AIIsACrapshoot goes nuts and the car goes out of control]], at which point it's up to a squad of people with the instinctive ability to drive manual-control cars (called eX-Drivers) to chase them down and bring them to a halt with their driving skills and some fancy battools (specifically, a gadget that freezes up the target's onboard GPS, and revolvers that fire some sticky-cement substance for blacking out the machine's sensors). It is very, very cool. And themesongs by JAMProject!

* ''The Car'' (1977) is about a car that goes on a killing spree. Presumably [[spoiler:being posessed by a demon rather than just driven by one]] brings it within this trope.

* Happened at least twice in ''TheRealGhostbusters''. Both times, Ecto-1 was posessed by a malevolent spirit and attacked the Ghostbusters. The first time it immediately transformed into a monstrous version of itself, but the transformation was much slower and subtler in the second instance; the car spent half the episode screwing with Winston's head before taking off on its own.

* The "Glory Days" flashback sequence in ''TheIncredibles'' briefly shows the Incredicar driving itself while Mr. Incredible changes into costume.

--->'''Carl''': [[CrowningMomentOfFunny One of those]] ''[[TakeThat American]]'' [[CrowningMomentOfFunny robot cars]].

--->'''Lenny''': Hey! Look, Homer's got one of those robot cars!

--->'''Carl''': One of those ''American'' robot cars.