Are Google's / Waymo's vehicles not steering-wheel and pedal free? E.g., go to Waymo's own site here[1], scroll to "2015 World’s first fully self-driving ride on public roads", and watch the video: they give, if I'm not mistaken, a blind man a ride in a steering-wheel-free, pedals-free autonomous vehicle on public roads, in Texas. Now, granted, the original article is about the CA DMV, but I've seen vehicles that are indistinguishable from the prototype car in the video driving in Mountain View. Unless there's a model with steering wheels and pedals (it is hard to say from the outside), that would seem to imply that Google is testing fully autonomous cars in California. (Note that I'm not trying to imply that this is illegal: I'm not well-versed enough in the DMV's rules around autonomous vehicles to know if it requires "being ready to take the helm at any time" or not. I also did not realize, until Waymo's announcement recently, that they were so far along.)

[1]: https://waymo.com/journey/