Steps to autonomy

This seems pretty straightforward, until you start thinking about how you might actually deploy this - and about the fact that some places are easier to drive in than others. As we can already see with the early tests being done with prototype autonomous cars (with their need for a human'safety driver', today these are are effectively L2 or at best L3), autonomy of any kind in one city is different to another - Phoenix is easier than San Francisco, which is easier than Naples or Moscow. This variability applies not just across different cities and countries but also in different parts of each urban landscape: freeways are easier than city centers, which might be easier or harder than suburbs. It naturally follows that we will have vehicles that will reliably reach a given level of autonomous capability in some ('easy') places before they can do it everywhere. These will have huge safety and economic benefits, so we'll deploy them - we won't wait and do nothing at all until we have a perfect L5 car that can drive itself around anywhere from Kathmandu to South Boston.