This paper provides a survey of recent works on cognitive cars with a focus on driver-oriented intelligent vehicle motion control. The main objective here is to clarify the goals and guidelines for future development in the area of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADASs). Two major research directions are investigated and discussed in detail: (1) stimuli-decisions-actions, which focuses on the driver side, and (2) perception enhancement-action-suggestion-function-delegation, which emphasizes the ADAS side. This paper addresses the important achievements and major difficulties of each direction and discusses how to combine the two directions into a single integrated system to obtain safety and comfort while driving. Other related topics, including driver training and infrastructure design, are also studied.