Now this is just cool

Four vehicles finish in $2 million robot race

Note these are autonomous vehicles, not remotely-piloted ones. And whatever they may say about the military applications (and of course you have to claim a military application to get funding), the real reason to pursue this is for space exploration. With current technology, there's no reason why remotely-piloted vehicles wouldn't be good enough for any conceivable military use. It's only the time-lag of getting signals back and forth in space that make autonomous vehicles necessary. So this is cool.