Self driving cars always seem to be "tomorrow's promise". One major reason is the way that machine learning struggles with "generalising" from more specific data. A child doesn't need to be shown every possible type of chair to learn what a chair is – but throw a few pixels out and your CNN is likely to miscategorise that wolf as a bear (http://advances.utc.sk/index.php/AEEE/article/download/2202/1271), which could have catastrophic consequences, especially if the knowledge is used maliciously. The Verge is asking whether this limit on capability is leading to a dead end – without significant progress in generalisation driving may be simply too unpredictable to be achieveable
https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/3/17530232/self-driving-ai-winter-full-autonomy-waymo-tesla-uber
Skeptics say full autonomy could be farther away than the industry admits