> has this to say about autonomous cars: “It’s a scam. These companies have squandered tens of billions of dollars.”

Hotz says that companies have used lots of money, so to me it looks like he is referring to the companies and not the technology.

But reading a bit more, it's all to vague and the writer of the article made it really difficult to understand what's really being said here. It can be interpreted multiple ways.

Although I'm in the skeptic camp for self-driving readiness, all writing should be fair and clear about it. I'm surprised that power-assisted human control of stuff is so far behind, all we have is lane assist and stuff like that. You'd think we'd have haptic pothole anticipation or seats that cringe a little when someone roars up from behind by now.