First, given what a sea change fully autonomous vehicles are to the way we've been driving for 100 years, there's a threshold question about safety. AVs have a remarkably strong safety record. It's the top priority of every AV CEO I've ever met or worked with. The occasional software glitch or fender bender does deserve scrutiny, but such incidents receive lopsided attention and ought to be weighed against the tens of thousands of traffic deaths on U.S. roads each year caused by drunk, distracted or reckless humans. Second, critics say after all the hype and money spent, AVs aren't even on public roads or capable of serving passengers and businesses.

In October, a modified Dallara-15 Indy Lights race car programmed by MIT Driverless will hit the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway at speeds of up to 120 miles per hour. The Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC) is the world's first head-to-head, high-speed autonomous race. It offers MIT Driverless a chance to grab a piece of the $1.5 million purse while outmaneuvering fellow university innovators on what is arguably the most iconic racecourse. But the IAC has implications beyond the track. Stakeholders for the event include Sebastian Thrun, a former winner of the DARPA Grand Challenge for autonomous vehicles, and Reilly Brennan, a lecturer at Stanford University's Center for Automotive Research and a partner at Trucks Venture Capital.

Baidu has already developed autonomous vehicle tech, but now plans to produce electric vehicles in partnership with Geely, the Chinese automaker that owns Volvo and Polestar, according to MSNBC. The idea is that Geely will design and manufacture the EVs, while Baidu, China's search equivalent to Google, will supply the technology. "China has become the world's largest market for EVs, and we are seeing EV consumers demanding next generation vehicles to be more intelligent," said Baidu CEO Robin Li in a statement. China's EV market is getting more crowded every day, thanks in part to government subsidies and rapidly expanding charging infrastructure. On top of incumbents like Tesla and domestic companies Nio, Xpeng Motors and others, other tech companies like Foxconn (with Byton) and Alibaba are jumping in.

In a year-long litigation process that featured alleged theft, mysterious deleted text messages, and the odd reference to Burning Man, Friday's twist was perhaps the most unexpected of all: On the fifth day in court, Waymo accepted a settlement in its self-driving tech trade secret lawsuit against Uber. In the trial's fifth day, witnesses were set to testify as to how Waymo's trade secrets had appeared in Uber lidar designs, the specialized sensor that helps self-driving cars see. Instead, lawyers hugged in the San Francisco's courtroom well, as the federal judge assigned to the case, William Alsup, declared the whole suit "ancient history." The case had threatened to reshape the race for autonomous vehicle tech. Waymo, by some measures, leads in developing self-driving car technology, with over four million miles of public road testing behind it.

The five biggest tech companies have applied for more than 52,000 patents since 2009, according to a report by CB Insights. And the applications tell a story about where each of the tech giants is strong and where they're weak. For instance, the patent applications show that Apple lags badly in artificial intelligence, one of the fastest-growing segments in tech. Microsoft leads AI with more than 200 patent applications since 2009, and Google comes in second with 150. Apple came in last among the top five.