> Ok, we have different definitions of maturity. To me, it means your system's core functionality works reliably in the use cases it is designed for. Nice-to-haves like speed smoothing are secondary.
I agree with this definition, but I see it more as a sliding scale than a checkbox. I think it comes down to whether you look at each system in isolation or whether you put them all on a single spectrum. I'm imagining human driving at one end of a spectrum and fully automated driving at the other, and looking at what percent of driving conditions each system provides a safety or utility improvement in (so you can see why features like speed smoothing and reacting to nearby cars quickly become relevant to my thinking). But I can see why, judging each system on its own, one would say that Autosteer is less mature at what it aims to do than simpler and more constrained systems are at what they aim to do.
You summarized my take on Autopilot as accurately as one can in a single sentence (thank you for that btw). Like you, I look forward to the day when data is available to resolve competing hypotheses like these. Elon pledged on the last earnings call to release quarterly Autopilot data reports; I'm hoping those will include Autopilot vs non-Autopilot driving usage and their respective highway accident rates, broken down by feature (TACC, Autosteer, TACC + Autosteer, etc). I think that'd be the best way to assess Autopilot safety, as it would control for all other factors. It'd be great to have apples-to-apples numbers from all manufacturers, but I think that will take longer and probably some coordination from NHTSA.