The automotive industry is currently littered with the financial wreckage of ambitious self-driving projects, and Volkswagen just added the most expensive piece of debris to the pile.

 

For the last two years, the German giant has been pouring massive amounts of capital into a joint automated driving alliance with mega-supplier Bosch. But after burning through an astonishing €1.5 billion (roughly $1.7 billion), the automaker has reportedly slammed the brakes on the entire operation.

 

Instead of yielding a cutting-edge, mass-market autonomous platform, the project has turned into a billion-dollar lesson in software hubris.