honestly, the whole concept of self-driving cars is fundamentally stupid in the way they’re trying to build them here. if there are specific cities where they can go on specific roads, the simple answer would be to install a positional tracking system on those roads (just like lane markings, but for computers), along with some pedestrian safety features and the right interfaces to respond to emergency vehicles and such. that could have been built by a couple of undergrads from stanford like five years ago. but no, we have to use far more overengineered solutions, for… why exactly? to be able to sell the tech later to individuals who can’t just upgrade their whole city?
But the long run goal isn’t to be able to run only in very specific, rich cities that are willing to completely retrofit a massive city to support these cars. Clearly they want to be able to eventually replace all and any car usage with self driving cars.
I think you may also be underestimating just how expensive it would be to install systems like that, especially since it has to be maintained too.
