I get that it is an opinion piece, but claiming that autonomous cars need 5G or that these cars would be remote controlled (so not autonomous at all and useless in a tunnel) makes this article just sound horribly uninformed.
I don't really blame them, because I've seen it as part of pretty much every 5g promotional material I've seen.
Why? It's the truth. Tesla is already connected to cellular networks. Once 5G really takes off, what makes you think manufacturers aren't going to race to have the first autonomous vehicle connected via 5G? There will be whole marketing campaigns revolving around that very thing.
I believe the parent was trying to point out the inconsistencies in calling something "autonomous" yet still saying that it's incapable to doing things without a cell connection.
In my industry (it's one of the businesses that are involved in NEMA) the use cases touted for 5g are vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle<>infrastructure although I think 5g's going to prove too expensive and Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) will predominate.
Autonomous cars need internet access to display relevant ads to the passengers.