The urban challenge could very well be the best thing to ever come out of DARPA. Riding in the OshKosh truck going around some actual roads in rough conditions is when autonomous cars became "real" to me. In relatively little time they had it going down roads in the woods and driving at high speeds within a few feet of a fence. Now that truck seems clunky and primitive in comparison even just against what Tesla is doing on production cars just 10 years later. Autonomous cars in another 10 years time still feels like a pipedream but then again I would have thought the same thing about where we are today 10 years ago.