By Theo LeggettBusiness reporter, BBC NewsTheo Leggett meets a car that sees pedestrians and tells them when they can cross the roadContinue reading the main storyWhat If?What if everyone had a car?WatchWhat if you could mine the Moon?The impact of 'big data'Ivy League education for free?WatchIn the 1980s the global TV hit Knight Rider not only made a star of David Hasselhoff, it also made the idea of a car driven and controlled by a robot part of popular culture. Now the concept is moving from the TV screen onto the roads of Silicon Valley."The steering is entirely drive-by-wire, it's computer controlled," says Holly as we hurtle around the campus of Stanford University in a weird and wonderful contraption which would not seem out of place in a Mad Max movie."It's all electronic - there's no mechanical connection so we can programme it to do pretty much what we want."Holly works at Stanford's Center for Automotive Research, based in Palo Alto, in the heart of California's Silicon Valley.The machine she's driving is known as the X1. It looks like a cross between a car and a beach buggy, with half an electronics laboratory thrown in.There's no bodywork, just a frame made out of metal tubes. We sit in bucket seats, held in by race harnesses.In front, you can see every twitch of the chunky red suspension springs as the large alloy wheels bounce over Stanford's many potholes.The whole thing is festooned with wiring, switches and important-looking electronic gadgets.Driverless carsThe X1 is a test-bed for the kind of technology which might seem exotic today, but which may eventually be commonplace.It's one of a number of vehicles created by the organisation which is on the front line of research into electronic systems that are designed initially to help human drivers, but may ultimately replace them altogether.Stanford's X1 robocar is trying out technology that could be used every day in the futureMany of our cars are increasingly driven by artificial intelligence - they have engine management systems, computers which are designed to make sure the engine runs as efficiently as possible.ABS detects when a driver has used the brakes too violently and prevents the wheels from locking up, and traction control can stop the wheels from spinning uselessly when the driver accelerates in slippery conditions.For the moment, the driver remains in charge, but research into driverless cars or "vehicle autonomy" as it's known in the industry, is already well advanced.Internet giant Google has actually been operating a fleet of self-driving cars on the streets of California for some time, but other multinationals such as Volkswagen, Bosch, General Motors and Mercedes are also working on autonomous systems.As a result, Silicon Valley is increasingly becoming a new hub for automotive engineering.Safety firstIn February, Japanese carmaker Nissan became the latest manufacturer to set up a research office in the region, specifically to focus on developing self-driving technologies.But why do we actually need driverless cars? According to the executive director of the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford, Sven Beiker, a key aspect is safety."We're very interested in what