You can't just walk in being an arrogant, know-it-all whiz kid and demand that the rules be bent and mere mortals be forced to step aside in deference to your superior intellect.
It doesn't matter if most people reject your idea, you only need a couple cities to say "approved for preliminary testing for a limited number/couple thousand beta testers" to go into Prod. And then when you go into prod you get real life data and can prove that your product really is as awesome as you say it is, THEN you go back to the countries that said no, but this time with more money and actual facts to back you up.
This isn't some super expensive product that is out of reach for the world. This is a thousand dollar conversion kit. If these things were available and I owned a Honda, I would have bought it to just mess around with it instead of buying the HTC Vive that I got last night.
I am sure there are lots of beta customers around the world who would be interested in getting a prelim beta version.
That sounds like you think that other countries would allow "a bunch of half-ass, poorly-engineered self-driving cars on our roads"?
As an EU citizen, I can assure you that this is widely off the mark.
Then I'm very thankful for the NHTSA we have in America. I don't want a bunch of half-ass, poorly-engineered self-driving cars on our roads. I use those roads, and so do my family members.
While I'm looking forward to self-driving cars taking over, I don't want the Comma One in the field if they can't handle the most basic safety inquiries.