Yeah, a "small enough to kick out of your way" autonomous driving project is a one or two semester student project (if you're starting from nothing, Sebastian Thrun's old Udacity course was a good way to bootstrap through the algorithmic parts, then maybe watch James Bruton for "everything you could possibly imagine doing with wheels, motors, and an infinite supply of 3d printer filament")
That's in part because it needs to be very reliable to not kill people.
If the worst that can happen is killing a garden gnome or running over someone's toes you can tolerate more error.