Doesn't surprise me, after reading http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-george-hotz-self-driv...: "Instead of the hundreds of thousands of lines of code found in other self-driving vehicles, Hotz’s software is based on about 2,000 lines."
In general I like the approach of using deep-learning instead of complex hardcoded rules (see the article above for more details), but even with deep-learning you're going to need a complex ruleset in order to deal with the edge-cases.
Getting a prototype of a self-driving car working is probably much less than 5% of the overall amount of work that's required. Getting the car respond correctly to the long tail of edge cases is the other 95% of the work.
There's a long road from a working prototype to a shipping product.
Confidence is not something I would assign to his product. Or any product that is a camera-only lane-follower.
That Holtz caves at the slightest thought of a regulator looking at his work easily shows how immature he is as an engineer.