FWIW I agree with both of you and say the same thing.

It's in particular a California cult, because they don't actually have weather there.

Anybody who has dealt with driving in a full blown northern winter is likely more skeptical.

There are some of us lurkers who agree with you wholeheartedly.

This the general consensus in the academy too.

99% of situations are the "easy" part. It is the last 1% that will take a long time. Snow. Rain. Missing headlight. Etc.

Yeah, and you can easily handle driver negligence in the easy part with always-on driver assistance. Plus it's unacceptable to allow humans away from the steering wheel when they are needed 1% of the time.

This is assuming that "self-driving cars" isn't just another name for driver assistance packages and is actually level 5 autonomy (which a few of my friends believe will be on the road this year with Tesla model 3)

Can't we just accept that the car won't drive itself in the snow or rain or with a missing headlight?

I'd find that totally reasonable, and get back behind the wheel to take my own risks in a snowstorm (or ... you know... stay at home like the advisories always tell you to).

I would absolutely not find it reasonable if my "self-driving" car won't drive itself in the rain or snow, given that in my climate, it is raining or snowing >270 out of every 360 days of the year.

Such a product would still have a large market value since there are nice climates with dense populations in the world too, but not everyone lives in California.

I actually live in Virginia. We get snow and rain just as much as any where else in the N.E. USA.

However our yearly precipitation is ~132 days, where each of those isn't a straight 24 hours of rain or snowfall.

I wouldn't find it terrible to buy a self-driving car that runs 2/3rds of the year without any problems, and I need to drive personally if and only if I must go out during heavy rain or snowfall instead of waiting 1 hour for the rain to stop.

Right now, many times I just wait for the rain to stop before going out because there isn't anything pressing or time sensitive about needing groceries on a Tuesday.

What you said -- plus: the last thing you want is a car that 'self drives' until the conditions suddenly change at high speeds and the half-aware driver is forced to take over unprepared and unalert and convinced that his/her car is supposed to be driving for them.

Exactly, if we are forcing drivers to stay focused on the road with hands on the wheel. It's not "self driving", as in it's not level 5 autonomy