Also, at least to my opinion, its not very clear that the market is big enough. Its highly unlikely that one single company can monopolize the market as there are quite a few rich companies with deep pocket and extremely talented team are investing in the same space.
If more than a dozen companies comes out with very similar performing self-driving solution. The markey may not be big enough to recoup the investment into this technology.
For the longest time I thought waymo was way ahead of everyone else - but the nature of their slow and passive progress in to the market doesn't give me a lot of confidence in their abilities.
They have a hardtime in relatively peaceful streets of developed world, how will technilogy work on the streets of developing countries where most people live?
I think the problem is extremely hard. And it will take a lot longer than most people initially though it would.