[robterrell]

The reporter is right, and we're wrong. The question the article is answering is "Are Google's self-driving cars ready?" The article explains in general-interest terms why they're not.

You or I might be tempted to buy that exact car today as a beta, knowing that we'd have to tweak a lot of things, but (a) I don't want to drive in a world where your beta car with your rooted ROMs is driving around (and you definitely don't want to drive on the same streets as my inexperly-rooted ROMS, trust me); (b) the grandparent comment is underestimating the work involved in micro-mapping all of the possible routes, let alone the vast array of possible interactions between other vehicles, humans, animals, new road hazards, weather, etc. all mixed together.

I'm sure it's going to be a few years. Maybe more than a few. But that's okay with me. The stakes are pretty high for two-ton hunks of metal moving at 60 mph. This is something we all definitely want them to get as close to correct as humanly possible before it's available to consumers.