If twin peaks and downtown are your definition of "noob-level driving", what's normal difficulty? Mumbai rush hour? An active war zone?

I don't think there's a "normal". It's a scale with SF at the very bottom, Mumbai at the top. North West Europe in the middle, etc.

I'm not sure what the point of your comment is. Are you disagreeing that SF is very easy driving? There's very little traffic. The roads are a perfect grid. Nothing ever blocks the lanes. The roads are all very wide so finding a place to stop is easy. Etc. etc.

Most driving in the world is not like that.

Have you ever driven in SF? None of those are true. Here's a random street in the twin peaks neighborhood I mentioned: https://maps.app.goo.gl/XnGpwPN7YH24YJGQ7

Double parked vehicles are also a regular occurrence in SF, and even triple parked vehicles happen frequently enough to be a problem at fleet scale.

Driving in SF alone means it’s above mid tier in most other places.

SF drivers are pretty okay as far as my experiences go. Unless it rains, if it is raining then they'll act like this is the first time they have driven in the rain. Seattle-Tacoma area was the worst. I have never seen so many people drive with so little attention paid to their surroundings.

I was referring to road layouts and obstacles on the roads mostly.

But SF road layout is a simple grid and there are basically zero obstacles on the road.

But they’re narrow, all the slopes, parking on the street, pedestrians and construction make it challenging I think.

They aren't narrow! Slopes don't really add to driving difficulty. Based on what I saw parking on the street generally didn't actually block any lanes - they're mostly designated bays.

I just went to a random location - I promise it's not cherry picked - on streetview:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/5u8BGVgYSnLz9kj39?g_st=ac

How easy is that? I have absolutely no idea how it's going to deal with actual parking on the street like this

https://maps.app.goo.gl/UMwkJau85gMG4txG9?g_st=ac

That's a 2-way road. Quite annoying but pretty common in the UK.

Don't get me wrong - they've absolutely done the right thing by starting in the easiest possible places (Tesla's plan is ridiculous in comparison). I just think it will still be at least another decade before they come to more difficult driving locations.

strong disagree

Where is it easier to drive than SF?

Phoenix

Ha touché!