The Carver is on sale across Europe with a current sticker price of £28,600 for the basic model with VAT / €30,999. It is fully road-approved in the EU. You will need a full car drivers license to drive it, but for tax purposes it is treated as a tricycle, typically coming to £115 road tax per year. Insurance for the Carver can be hard to come by, but Norwich Union and Bikesure Insurance will cover you, typically for £400 - £500 per year.

The Volkswagen Golf is the worlds third-best selling car, and Volkswagens most successful road car ever to be produced. The Mark 1 Golf was released in 1974, and to the present day over 25 million have been manufactured. The Golf has been chopped and changed over the decades, ranging from a 3-door hatchback to the cabriolet all the way to a station wagon model. The Golf has remained in high regard amongst the world's car drivers and its popularity has not waned significantly in 31 years.

Now Volkswagen is attempting the ultimate variation of the beloved Golf: A self-driven model that uses extremely accurate digital maps and a sophisticated GPS system to allow the car to navigate the roads and take you to your destination. Real Van Damme "Time Cop" stuff there...

So far along is the research and development that the prototype Golf has already been produced and is undergoing a series of rigorous tests to hopefully work out any kinks that might see you accidentally driven into a river or on roundabout routes to your destination. Of course this concept of a self driving car is theoretical at the moment-no one expects to see a mysterious car coasting by with the driver busy doing their make-up...

The car can also be manually operated, and switched to automatic when parked. The Golf features all the standard Volkswagen automotive parts but everything is connected to a remote computer, for when you want the car to take the reins and start driving itself.

All the equipment under the hood of the Golf is controlled by a CPU, and this on-board computer receives its information from a combination of GPS tracking and an advanced 'laser eye' mounted on the dashboard. Essentially the car drives itself by using this laser to "see" cars, roads, pedestrians and everything that it needs to supplement the directions dictated by its GPS system.

To test the Golf's performance, a track was outlined with traffic cones on open concrete. The test aimed to assess the Golf in terms of speed, agility and safety. The car was put into automatic mode and proceeded at a slow pace, using its laser "eye" to scan, identify, and log the position of the cones into its digital memory. With this test lap completed the car was instructed to cut loose and try to navigate the track as quickly as possible.

This second lap proved more impressive, with the family car successfully negotiating the winding track at speed. The verdict couldn't have been better for its developers; the technology looks promising for the future.

Of course this concept is still experimental and won't be mainstream for some years, if ever. But at the current rate of technological advancement, and with improvements in both GPS and digital imaging this concept may see further development. One day we might all have the option to let our cars drive us home while we unwind after a stressful day at the office.