"fully autonomous around Mountain View" is not equivalent to "fully autonomous". In particular, Uber can't just take the former and deploy it everywhere.

They don't need to deploy it everywhere.

Even if it can only navigate between SFO and Mountain View, that's ready to deploy as a commercial venture. There will be an adoption ramp anyway. It will just follow the driving difficulty gradient.

In practical terms, it's ready now. Driving people home from the ski area in a blizzard will be the final task, but it doesn't need to be solved to put both Uber and GM out of business.

There is a bit of a misunderstanding in this thread I think.

I (and others, I believe) were arguing when a car we would want to buy could forgo a steering wheel.

You're right that e.g. Uber could have a steering-wheel-less fleet that they simply retire in adverse conditions, sooner than that.

Automonous cars that you buy won't be an important product historically, except as a data collection strategy for Tesla etc. Autonomous carshare will be at least half of the mobility market, eventually eating all but the very wealthiest customers, plus driving enthusiasts.

"want to buy" is a pretty nebulous and person thing. It doesn't seem meaningful to talk about without fully qualifying much less say "it's not possible". We can move the goalposts all we want but those sorts of cars are imminent for at least early adopters. If you want to say you won't feel comfortable for another 10 years, great, but that doesn't mean the event hasn't happened. It's a tremendous accomplishment. I've seen the fully autonomous cars making lefts on El Camino that I just would not do, ever, and they do it perfectly.

> We can move the goalposts all we want

I wasn't aware I did that.

> but those sorts of cars are imminent for at least early adopters

without steering wheels? Dear God I hope not.

I use driving assistants in my car, but I'm painfully aware of their limitations. These days we absolutely still need a steering wheel. In my car for mundane situations, in Elon's miracle machines maybe only to park in an utterly unmarked field at a festival or whatever.

It has already happened as I've said repeatedly. I'll stop bleeding karma pointing out reality.