When driverless cars are common on midwestern highways every night, they will start moving into complex urban areas. We are very far from cars navigating downtown NYC, Seattle, SF, Boston, etc.

Re "midwestern highways": haha, I don't see a "self-driving" car navigating the I-90 in Chicago anytime sooner than SF. ;) At least SFBA has super mild weather that makes the obstacle detection problem much easier. Here there are only two seasons: winter and road construction.

(But yeah, we are very far from cars navigating urban areas, or indeed anyplace where weather is inclement and so are people.)

Do you live in NYC, Seattle, SF, or Boston?

Yes, Boston, and when can I order my driverless car to pick me up?

A few months ago if you ignore the safety driver [0].

If cars with safety drivers don't count, nearly a year ago if you move to Pheonix and get lucky [1]. They're apparently planning to launch in more cities "soon" (though I can't find a list or date) [2] and they've recently got permission to start charging passengers and intend to by the end of they year [3].

So I think "decades" is an exaggeration.

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/6/16742924/lyft-nutonomy-bo...

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/25/15415840/waymo-self-drivi...

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/01/waymo...

[3] https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/waymo-now-a-full-ride-hai...

Pretty sure driverless cars are being tested in almost all of those cities already.

The Falcon Heavy took five years to develop and it's basically just a bigger version of the same Falcon 9 rocket they've been sending up for years.

Even if you have a driverless solution today it'll take years to test it and get it certified.

A gas-powered, highway-capable, driverless car feels callous. I hope those algos are good.