Sure, the California DMV could get its way and successfully kick Uber's self-driving cars off the streets of San Francisco. But if it does, it will be just one small step backward in a year that's been all about robo-rides charging ahead. In the past 12 months, autonomous vehicles have pushed into the public consciousness like never before, thanks to technical advances and pilot projects that have revealed both that these vehicles aren't so far off as many might think, and that their potential to reshape how humans move about. In 2016, Uber welcomed the public into its cars with a (definitely legal) pilot project in Pittsburgh; nuTonomy did the same in Singapore. Google officially launched its self-driving project as a standalone company under the Alphabet umbrella, called Waymo.