Saw this news story a few days ago about a car being driven with just thought, using a special cap with sensors.
http://www.jpost.com/Sci-Tech/Article.aspx?id=215704
To me this still seems entirely muktzeh and therefor should be no question about it's permissibility on Sabbath or not.
By virtue of a Rabbinic discussion it would appear that there is a possibility that this might be acceptable. What are the issues that would allow this?
From a piece by Rabbi Gil Student about robots on shabbos:
R. Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, according to one report, considered thought that directs a forbidden labor, such as via machines that read brain waves, to be forbidden (Me’orei Eish Ha-Shalem 10:13 pp. 765-766; pp. 893-895).
There is also an issue of going out of the Techum. In addition it is definately not in the spirit of Shabbos.
Such a thing won't be allowed in practice, but on what level will it be forbidden? Any action is caused by the brain, but it has to result in a physical action to be an actual melacha. Even grama, etc. have a primary physical action involved. So its unlikely thinking can be a melacha d'oraysa. The question is what if you kill someone by thinking?
I would think that driving such a vehicle (ie., one that is not controlled by your actions), would be forbidden for at least the same reason that riding a horse is forbidden. The horse is not controlled by your actions - it is influenced by them, but it can, if it wants, buck you from its back and disregard your actions directing it to move. Yet it is still prohibited as a Geder (fence) to prevent actual violation of Shabbath (although the original violation of concern - breaking a stick off the ground to hit the animal - may be irrelevant to a car, other concerns may be raised, such as various activities done within the car that one may do by accident, forgetting it is Shabbath).
