Any sufficiently-capable team should be able to (trivially?) acquire funding to create a proper autonomous car outfit. The prize would be inconsequential relat

Any sufficiently-capable team should be able to (trivially?) acquire funding to create a proper autonomous car outfit. The prize would be inconsequential relative to the startup costs, resources, and upside of such a company. It would be more like winning a Phase 2 SBIR grant. On the flip side, any poorly-funded upstart is unlikely to make achievements capable of swaying public perception -- especially in comparison to the autonomous car divisions of big multi-national auto companies. TL;DR: We're probably beyond the stage of a DARPA challenge for autonomous cars. Billions of dollars of private money is already flowing.