Do you see regulatory hurdles as more pressing than technical hurdles?
Not yet.
Based on what I know of Google's efforts, I think your three-year horizon for Tesla is, well, optimistic. As many miles as Google has logged, they're not testing at highway speeds yet -- I don't think their driverless prototypes (as opposed to the modified Lexus SUVs) are even capable of highway speeds. Also, AFAIK, they're only testing cars in Mountain View and Austin, which means there's a lot of weather conditions -- and to some degree terrain -- that they haven't had to accommodate. The most recently-given figures they've supplied that I can find is that they expect to be able to commercialize their technology between 2017 and 2020 -- and they've been working on this project since 2009. Tesla'a engineering is good, to be sure, but I would be really surprised if they beat Google to market in this area.
Now, once somebody really does start offering these for sale to the general public (or just to taxi/rideshare companies or etc.), the answer to your question shifts from "not yet" to "yep."
> As many miles as Google has logged, they're not testing at highway speeds yet -- I don't think their driverless prototypes (as opposed to the modified Lexus SUVs) are even capable of highway speeds.
Tesla's autopilot functions at up to 90mph.
> I think your three-year horizon for Tesla is, well, optimistic.
"Four days later, Reese, Mastracci, and Roy piled into a Model S and took off. They covered 2,994 miles at an average speed of 51.8 mph, a figure that includes the time spent plugged into Supercharger stations along the way. They had autopilot mode engaged 96 percent of the time, Reese says, using it at speeds around 90 mph. It eased the burden on the team, a big deal when you’re in a car for 57 hours straight."
96 percent of the time, at speeds up to 90mph, across 2,994 miles
Speed is not the problem. Highways are going to be the first sections of self-driving roads. Because they are simple predictable environments, which requires less hardware, where accidents have high costs, liability issues are small, trips are long and where computers offers an advantage over the human mind in terms of endurance. This is something we will have in 3-5 years.
To tackle all the other problems to truly have a self-driving cars is going to take much longer. Not at least since there will be decreasing incentive to solve these much harder problems in a cost effective way.
I take that as a very strong piece of evidence that 96% of the time on a very long road trip is spent on roads with near-ideal conditions. It sounds like the trip was mostly on highways. US interstates are wide, straight, and nearly uniformly impeccably painted and signed.
4% of the time there's inclement weather, ambiguously signed construction, heavy traffic in snow that occludes the entirety of the road, cars stopped in their lane, detours into the lane normally dedicated to oncoming traffic, and all sorts of other low-frequency events that are much harder to solve than keeping a car moving forward on an interstate.
I'd argue that 96% autonomous driving time isn't even enough to say we're 50% of the way through the challenges of creating an autonomous vehicle. Think twice before accusing me of not understanding percentages.
(I clearly remember a video demonstrating one of the employees pulling on to the freeway and then giving the car control, I found the above while doing a quick search for that)
The second slide here says 300,000 freeway miles circa 2012:
Not yet.
Based on what I know of Google's efforts, I think your three-year horizon for Tesla is, well, optimistic. As many miles as Google has logged, they're not testing at highway speeds yet -- I don't think their driverless prototypes (as opposed to the modified Lexus SUVs) are even capable of highway speeds. Also, AFAIK, they're only testing cars in Mountain View and Austin, which means there's a lot of weather conditions -- and to some degree terrain -- that they haven't had to accommodate. The most recently-given figures they've supplied that I can find is that they expect to be able to commercialize their technology between 2017 and 2020 -- and they've been working on this project since 2009. Tesla'a engineering is good, to be sure, but I would be really surprised if they beat Google to market in this area.
Now, once somebody really does start offering these for sale to the general public (or just to taxi/rideshare companies or etc.), the answer to your question shifts from "not yet" to "yep."