The robotic Prius is not a University project. The Pribot is a hobby of Anthony Levandowski, a 28 year old computer engineer living in San Francisco. It looks like autonomous vehicles are easy enough to build in your spare time. Levandowski has an advantage though. He was a student in Berkeley in 2004 taking part in the team that built the robotic motorcylce Ghostrider that entered the DARPA Grand Challenge.
The Pribot took a 25 minute drive through San Francisco guided by GPS and a laser scanned 3D map of the course.
Pribot's San Francisco tour will air on an upcoming episode of Prototype This!, a new Discovery Channel show that will debut on October 15th. More details on CNET.