[yeukhon]

But the end goal is that as a driver of my own car, I can just sit in the passenger seat. As a passenger of a taxi, similarly, I expect no driver.

The ultimate goal of self-driving car is to be driverless. But, if you want to produce a car without driver seat & steering wheel, then yes, from that perspective, driverseat-less car is different from self-driving car.

Otherwise, same.

[zild3d]

It's not about the seat, it's about whether or not a driver needs to be in that seat. Lower levels of autonomy need a driver to be able to step in. That is self-driving, but not driverless.

[yeukhon]

As I said three times already, self-driving car ultimately doesn't need a driver to be on the steering wheel. Why is it so hard to understand that? That's the whole idea of self-driving car.