I would love to know what the actual blocker to immediate global rollout [of robot cars] is.
In a word, snow.
I can’t help but feel it telling that all of the self-driving car trials take place in sunny places like LA and Phoenix. Snow, as I see it, creates two large obstacles for self-driving cars: the snow can physically obscure the road, and the snow (and ice) will differentially change the road surface friction.